Managing conflict between large carnivores and livestock

Lily M. van Eeden, Mathew S. Crowther, Chris R. Dickman, David W. Macdonald, William J. Ripple, Euan G. Ritchie, Thomas M. Newsome

Large carnivores are persecuted globally because they threaten human industries and livelihoods. How this conflict is managed has consequences for the conservation of large carnivores and biodiversity more broadly. Mitigating human-predator conflict should be evidence-based and accommodate people's values while also protecting carnivores. Despite much research into human-large carnivore coexistence strategies, there have been limited attempts to document the success of conflict mitigation strategies on a global scale. We present a meta-analysis of global research on conflict mitigation between large carnivores and humans, focusing on conflicts that arise from the threat that large carnivores pose to livestock industries. Overall, research effort and focus varied between continents, aligning with the different histories and cultures that shaped livestock production and attitudes towards carnivores. Of the studies that met our criteria, livestock guardian animals were most effective at reducing livestock losses, followed by lethal control, although the latter exhibited the widest variation in success and the two were not significantly different. Financial incentives have promoted tolerance in some settings, reducing retaliatory killings. In future, coexistence strategies should be location-specific, incorporating cultural values and environmental conditions, and designed such that return on financial investment can be evaluated. Improved monitoring of mitigation measures is urgently required to promote effective evidence-based policy. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.