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Suryawanshi, K.R.
Human-carnivore conflicts: Understanding predation ecology and livestock damage by snow leopards
2013  Full Book

This thesis is an attempt to develop an understanding of livestock depredation along the two important dimensions of human-wildlife conflict - the reality of damage caused by wildlife to humans, and the perceptions and attitudes of humans suffering the damage. The work presented in the thesis focuses on the endangered snow leopard _Panthera uncia_ as the model taxon and the local communities inhabiting snow leopard habitats. I have also included the sympatric wolf _Canis lupus_, and borrowed tools from the disciplines of ecology, sociology, and molecular biology to answer the key questions. Why are certain villages or areas in a landscape more vulnerable to carnivore depredation of livestock than others? Based on data from 25 villages in the Trans-Himalayan Spiti Valley, we found notable differences in livestock selectivity and ecological correlates of livestock depredation - both perceived and actual - by snow leopards and wolves. Stocking density of large-bodied free-ranging livestock (yaks and horses) best explained people's threat perception of livestock depredation by snow leopards, while actual livestock depredation was explained by the relative abundance of snow leopards and wild prey. In the case of wolves, peoples' perception was best explained by abundance of wolves, while actual depredation by wolves was explained by habitat structure. Our results indicated a positive association between wild-prey abundance and livestock depredation by snow leopards. This was counter-intuitive, as facilitating an increase in wild-prey populations is often recommended as a measure to reduce livestock depredation by carnivores. We developed theoretical predictions about the expected patterns of livestock depredation with an increase in wild-prey abundance. We tested these predictions by assessing the density and diet of the snow leopard in seven study sites across Central Asia that represented a gradient of wild-prey to livestock ratio. Since robust field techniques for estimating the abundance of mountain ungulates - the main wild-prey - were not available, we standardized the double-observer survey method, based on capture-recapture theory, by using a combination of computer simulations and field data from five study sites in Spiti Valley. Snow leopard density did not show any discernible relationship with livestock density, but increased linearly with wild-prey density. Snow leopard diet data suggested a type II functional response to wild-prey but a type III response to livestock. Together, these results predicted that with an increase in wild-prey density, the total number of livestock killed per unit time by snow leopards would first increase and then decline when wild-prey outnumber livestock beyond certain thresholds. Based on data from 24 villages across six study sites in Spiti Valley, we evaluated peoples' attitudes and examined how the importance of correlates changed as the scale of analysis expanded from the individual to the community. Our work shows that scaling-up to higher levels of social organization can throw light on important factors influencing human attitudes that would be missed by focusing exclusively at the individual level. Such scale-specific information can help to efficiently target appropriate conservation measures at appropriate scales. Our results provide insights for better management of human-carnivore conflicts and also reiterate the need for conflict management programs to be multi-pronged.

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