Knowledge of Wildlife, Hunting, and Human-felid Interactions in Maya Forest Communities of the Northern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico

Abstract

Human-wildlife impacts threaten large-felid persistence in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, triggered largely by livestock depredation. We aimed to explore knowledge and attitudes about local wildlife in relation to husbandry practices, hunting habits, and human-wildlife interactions, in three Maya Forest communities. A questionnaire survey of 30 long-established smallholdings, where livelihood depended on a private fenced plot and surrounding communal forest, found wide knowledge of local wildlife, perception biases for abundances of game species, and preference for living amongst wild herbivores over carnivores. Interviewees had concerns about perceived year-on-year decreases in local wildlife, attributed to regular subsistence hunting by their communities. The few interviewees reporting large-felid attacks on their livestock subsequently altered management practices to prevent further attacks. The region suffers from a poverty trap of subsistence hunting by smallholders needing protein supplement potentially exacerbating depredation on the livestock that sustain their economies by large felids deprived of their natural prey.