Digital conservation: using social media to investigate the scope of African painted dog den disturbance by humans

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media platforms allow people to share experiences, thoughts, and actions through words and images, including human interactions with both domestic and wild animals. Human-wildlife interactions have been documented to have negative effects on wildlife. We use social media and a content analysis framework to identify general locations of a specific human-endangered wildlife interaction: human activity at painted dog den sites. Two hundred twenty images and captions relating to den visits were collected from four social media platforms, and then general locations mapped. Results indicate that den visits by humans occurred in seven of 14 countries where painted dogs are known to be present. This information provides a starting point for further investigation into the impacts of this activity on painted dogs, which is valuable to the effective management of human-caused disturbances (e.g., reducing potential anthropogenic Allee effects) for this species.