Climate change influences the risk of physically harmful human-wildlife interactions

Abstract

Interactions with wildlife can pose substantial physical risk to humans, as well as damage efforts to protect the species involved. News reports of increasing dangerous interactions with animals indicate climate change may be acting as a risk magnifier for these confrontations, yet its impacts on human-wildlife interactions remain uncertain in the scientific discourse. We analysed 331 media reports on climate change driven human wildlife conflicts involving physically dangerous species and verified the effects found in the media with evidence from scientific literature. Our analysis showed that climate change can increase wildlife-induced physical harm to people. This result was consistent for venomous species, terrestrial-and aquatic carnivorous species and large-bodied terrestrial animals in 44 countries across the globe. We identified four climate driven trends that impact the risk of human casualties: i) increased resource competition between humans and wildlife due to drought; ii) range expansion of dangerous animals due to higher average temperatures; iii) temporary displacement of wildlife due to extreme weather events; iv) and changes in temporal behaviour patterns of wildlife due to higher average temperatures. The identification of overarching trends across different regions and species show the need to bridge the gap between wildlife research and the study of climate-related risks. The existence of, or potential for, wildlife-induced physical harm to people should be taken into account as a component of climate change driven risk. At the same time, we stress the importance of including current and future impacts of climate change into long-term wildlife management- and conservation schemes.