Urs Breitenmoser

People and Wildlife: Non-lethal techniques for reducing depredation

INTRODUCTION Ever since humans domesticated the first animals several thousand years ago, there have been conflicts with large carnivores attacking livestock (Kruuk 2002). Every year, thousands of cattle, sheep, goats, poultry or farmed fish are killed by wild carnivores worldwide (Thirgood et al ., Chapter 2) (Table 4.1). The farmers, in turn, kill the predators. Lethal control of stock-raiders is common in all cultures and has a devastating impact on many populations of large carnivores (Woodroffe et al ., Chapter 1). Retaliatory killing was the most important reason for the historic eradication of large carnivores in large areas (Breitenmoser 1998). In addition to killing the predators, herdsmen have tried to protect their livestock, mainly because lethal control alone rarely reduced depredation to an acceptable level. For a traditional society, the investment in terms of labour and resources for the protection of livestock was high (Kruuk 2002). Rural cultures have consequently adopted a combination of non-lethal measures, lethal control and – strongly varying between cultures – an acceptance of losses. The application of non-lethal techniques was mainly a matter of technology and of cost–benefit considerations. From the perspective of modern society, there are two more reasons to propagate preventive measures: conservation (lethal control threatens many carnivore populations), and ethical arguments (moral reservation against the killing of predators and against livestock being exposed to pain and suffering).

Walking with lions: why there is no role for captive-origin lions Panthera leo in species restoration.

Despite formidable challenges and few successes in reintroducing large cats from captivity to the wild, the release of captives has widespread support from the general public and local governments, and continues to occur ad hoc. Commercial so-called lion Panthera leo encounter operations in Africa exemplify the issue, in which the captive breeding of the lion is linked to claims of reintroduction and broader conservation outcomes. In this article we assess the capacity of such programmes to contribute to in situ lion conservation. By highlighting the availability of wild founders, the unsuitability of captive lions for release and the evidence-based success of wild-wild lion translocations, we show that captive-origin lions have no role in species restoration. We also argue that approaches to reintroduction exemplified by the lion encounter industry do not address the reasons for the decline of lions in situ, nor do they represent a model that can be widely applied to restoration of threatened felids elsewhere. Copyright

Fear of the unknown: local knowledge and perceptions of the Eurasian lynx

The remnant population of Balkan lynx Lynx lynx martinoi is small, isolated and highly threatened. Since 2006 a conservation project has surveyed its status and promoted its recovery in Albania and Macedonia. Eurasian lynx are often associated with conflicts of an economic or social nature, and their conservation requires a focus on the people sharing the landscape with the species. In this study we adopt methods and conceptual frameworks from anthropology to explore the local knowledge and perceptions of lynx among rural hunters and livestock breeders in the western mountains of the Republic of Macedonia in south-east Europe. The main finding was that local people rarely saw or interacted with lynx. As the level of interactions with this species is very low, the lynx doesn’t appear to be a species associated with conflicts in Macedonia. There was also a general lack of both scientific and local knowledge, which has led to somewhat negative attitudes, mainly based on myths and rumours. Poaching of lynx and their prey seem to be the main barriers to lynx conservation.

Joining up the Spots: Aligning Approaches to Big Cat Conservation from Policy to the Field

Abstract The Convention on Biological Diversity ( www.cbd.int ) defines biological diversity as the diversity within and between species, and of ecosystems. The convention aims to protect biological resources including genetic resources (genetic material of actual or potential value), organisms, populations, and other biotic components of ecosystems. A given species should hence not only by conserved as a part of the global biological diversity, but also as a large (and therefore variable) gene pool and as an actor in its ecosystem. Carnivores are important to maintain ecological processes through their influence on lower trophic levels and their high evolutionary (selective) potential because of the co-evolutionary relationships with their prey (Dawkins, R., Krebs, J.R., 1979. Arms races between and within species. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 205, 489–511; Ginsberg, J.G., 2001. Setting priorities for carnivore conservation: what makes carnivores different? In: Gittleman, J.L., Funk, S.M., Macdonald, D., Wayne, R.K. (Eds.), Carnivore Conservation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 498–523). For large cats, this implies that they should be conserved not only as a viable population, but as an important ecological player across their “original range.” Although this is unfortunately an illusion for most Panthera species – for example, the tiger (Panthera tigris) has lost 93% of its original range over the past 100 years ( Sanderson et al., 2006 ) – it is still possible for the snow leopard (Panthera uncia), which has experienced a much smaller range reduction, perhaps no more than 10%, (see Chapter 3) and is still widespread within its traditional distribution area. However, this implies coordinated conservation efforts over an area of almost 2,760,000 km², stretching 3500 km west-east and 3000 km north-south, across several climatic zones and habitats, 12 countries, and various cultures, languages, and economic systems.

The Cat Specialist Group and Tigers

Publisher Summary The mission of the Cat Specialist Group (CatSG) is to support and advance the conservation of all free-living cat species. The CatSG is one of over 100 such groups of the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Today, CatSG members are engaged in major conservation projects throughout the world and share their knowledge and expertise on the worlds 37 species of wild cats at scientific conferences and workshops. One of their most important duties is to determine the conservation status of wild cat populations worldwide and to compile this information for the IUCN List of Threatened Species. Members support the development and implementation of conservation strategies and action plans as instruments for the conservation of cat species and populations. The plight of the tiger has been a dominating conservation issue for many CatSG members. A major challenge facing CatSG members is that for many species conservation assessments suffer from a lack of reliable information. Even for the most charismatic and best-known species like tigers, changes occur very fast, or are hard to notice because the survey system is too slow to discover them in time. This is a task too big for the CatSG alone—it needs to cooperate with the international conservation community and the relevant institutions in the range countries.