Drivers of Predator Killing by Rural Residents and Recommendations for Fostering Coexistence in Agricultural Landscapes

Nicolás Gálvez,Freya A V St John,Zoe G Davies

doi:10.3389/fcosc.2021.712044

Abstract

Predators inhabiting human-dominated landscapes are vulnerable to various anthropogenic actions, including people killing them. We assess potential drivers of predator killing in an agricultural landscape in southern Chile, and discuss the implications for policies and interventions to promote coexistence. We evaluate five different types of motivation: (i) sociodemographics and household economy; (ii) livestock loss; (iii) predator encounter rates; (iv) knowledge of legal protection (all native predators are currently protected); and, (v) tolerance to livestock predation. As the killing of native predators is illegal, the prevalence of this behavior by rural residents was estimated using a symmetrical forced-response randomized response technique (RRT), a method designed to ask sensitive questions. A total of 233 rural residents from randomly assigned sample units (4 km2) across the study region completed our questionnaire. More conspicuous species, such as hawks (Falconiformes sp), foxes (Lycalopex sp) and free-roaming domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), were killed by a higher proportion of farmers than more cryptic species, like the felid güiña (Leopardus guigna), skunk (Conepatus chinga) and pumas (Puma concolor). The proportion of respondents admitting to killing predators was highest for hawks (mean = 0.46, SE = 0.08), foxes (mean = 0.29, SE = 0.08) and dogs (mean = 0.30, SE = 0.08) and lowest for güiña (mean = 0.10, SE = 0.09), which is the only species of conservation concern we examine (considered Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List). From our five motivation categories, past killing of predators was associated with higher reported predator encounter rates (guina, hawks), lower tolerance to livestock predation (hawks, dogs), higher reported livestock loss (dogs) and sociodemographics and household economy (foxes). Our results demonstrate that a one-size-fits-all approach to predator persecution is unlikely to reduce or eliminate illegal killings for the suite of species we examined. We identify and describe two main types of intervention that could foster coexistence, improvement of livestock management and domestic dog management in rural areas, as well as discussing the potential for social marketing.

Highlights

Predators inhabiting human-dominated landscapes are vulnerable to a diverse range of anthropogenic activities, such as land-use change, habitat degradation, hunting for meat/trade and direct persecution in retaliation for livestock predation or due to cultural norms (Ceballos and Ehrlich, 2002; Treves and Karanth, 2003; Cardillo et al, 2004; Woodroffe et al, 2005; Inskip and Zimmermann, 2009)
Güiña Hawk Fox Dog (Intercept) Agea Income Land parcel dependencya Livestock holdings Knowledge of legal protection Reported encounter rate Reported livestock loss Tolerance to livestock predation (Intercept) Age Income Land parcel dependency Livestock holdings Knowledge of legal protection Reported encounter rate Reported livestock loss Tolerance to livestock predation (Intercept) Age Income Land parcel dependency Livestock holdings Knowledge of legal protection Reported encounter rate Reported livestock loss (Intercept) Age Income Land parcel dependency Livestock holdingsa Knowledge of legal protection Reported encounter rate Reported livestock loss Tolerance to livestock predation aThese predictor variables were excluded from the full model due to model instability
Standard errors, odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals were derived from a multivariate logistic regression which incorporates the known probabilities of the forced-responses obtained with the randomized response technique (RRT)

Summary

Introduction

Predators inhabiting human-dominated landscapes are vulnerable to a diverse range of anthropogenic activities, such as land-use change, habitat degradation, hunting for meat/trade and direct persecution in retaliation for livestock predation or due to cultural norms (Ceballos and Ehrlich, 2002; Treves and Karanth, 2003; Cardillo et al, 2004; Woodroffe et al, 2005; Inskip and Zimmermann, 2009). Human persecution of predators has been responsible for species population declines and contributed to extinction events (Woodroffe, 2001). The outcomes of human-predator interactions are primarily determined by two main components: (i) how humans and predators interact; and, (ii) how humans react to those interactions (Marchini et al, 2019). At their worst, these interactions result in the killing of predators. Planning for coexistence entails navigating away from such a response and toward more positive outcomes for predators and people (Frank, 2016). A first step in this process is understanding what drives a person to behave in a particular way, including why they kill predators (St John et al, 2013; Marchini et al, 2019)

Methods

Results

Conclusion