Does the Vastness of the Serengeti Limit Human–Wildlife Conflicts?

Abstract

In this chapter we discuss whether the vastness of the Serengeti National Park (SNP) in northern Tanzania and associated protected areas minimises three forms of human–wildlife conflict: livestock predation by carnivores, bushmeat hunting and pathogen transmission between domestic animals and wildlife. The SNP covers 14,763 km2 and is surrounded by protected areas that form buffer-zones between the park and local people. This vast network of protected areas covers the majority of the 25,500 km2 Serengeti ecosystem; an area defined by the migratory movements of over one million herbivores. None of the protected areas are fenced. Fences would be detrimental to the ecosystem. We begin by discussing livestock predation in rural areas west of the SNP. Current low levels of livestock predation do not generate strong resentment among farmers. Predation levels will probably remain low provided there is adequate protection of migratory herbivore species. Next we detail the illegal harvest of bushmeat for home consumption and trade. Currently, hunters mostly work on foot; thus, buffer-zones form an effective distance barrier to wildlife deep within the SNP. This barrier will be diminished if hunters start using vehicles and if a proposed road through the north of the SNP is constructed. Finally, we consider disease transmission between domestic animals and wildlife and the efficacy of non-physical vaccine-induced barriers of immunity against disease spread. Mass vaccination of cattle against rinderpest has successfully eliminated this disease in wild ungulate species in the SNP. Although, vaccine-induced immunity barriers against rabies in domestic dogs recently failed to prevent epidemic rabies in domestic dogs surrounding the ecosystem, rabies did not spread to wild carnivores inside the SNP, suggesting that demographic and ecological factors within the SNP prevented the spread of epidemic rabies from domestic dogs into the park. Recent “silent” waves of canine distemper virus (CDV) infection in wild carnivores inside the SNP suggest that mass vaccination of domestic dogs have either failed to prevent CDV spreading to wildlife, or have controlled CDV in the surrounding domestic dog population but have not controlled cycles of CDV inside the SNP, suggesting that CDV is maintained in wild carnivore species and not in domestic dogs outside the park.