IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Soto, J.R. | |
| Patterns and determinants of Human-Carnivore conflicts in the Tropical Lowlands of Guatemala | |
| 2008 Full Book | |
Human-carnivore conflicts have been identified as a major cause of large carnivore population declines and can have negative economic impacts on local people. Although Humancarnivore conflicts (HCC's) have been studied intensively around the world, very little information on HCC's in Mesoamerica is available. I applied a survey questionnaire to cattle ranchers to examine patterns of livestock depredation and estimate total economic loss due to large predators in the tropical lowlands of Guatemala. Furthermore, I compared ranches with and without attacks using logistic regression and Aikaike's Information Criterion (AIC) to determine whether ranch characteristics (e.g., size, and number of cattle), livestock husbandry practices, and landscape structure in and around ranches explained the probability of occurrence of HCC's. Understanding patterns of livestock depredation and the influence of livestock husbandry practices and landscape features on HCC's is important for site-specific conflict mitigation strategies and identification of areas and ranches most prone to HCC's. The jaguar was the carnivore most accused of livestock attacks, followed by the puma and coyote in much smaller percentages; the type of livestock most attacked was cattle, followed by 10 goats, with cattle taken falling between the ages of 2 days and 12 months, while weights of cattle attacked ranged from 11.4 to 431.82 kg. I detected a preference towards male cattle, and, similar to other sites, most attacks occurred at night, and were more common during the rainy season, reaching a peak during the wettest months. A major difference detected between other sites previously studied in the neotropics (e.g., South America) were possible livestock attacks by coyotes in parts of the study site. Economic losses from carnivore attacks on livestock were minimal, yet, because small cattle ranches are predominant in the area, the economic impact of each loss may be perceived as significant by the ranches impacted by these losses. Finally, landscape variables (e.g., forest cover area, distance to forest cover, and distance to rivers) were the best predictors of HCC's. Even though ranches did not employ practices considered beneficial to reducing carnivore attacks on livestock, ranch characteristics and livestock husbandry practices were not important predictors of livestock attacks in this study because they were similar among most ranches. |
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