Abstract
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is becoming increasingly prevalent as human activity expands, and monitoring the impact of habitat quality on wildlife mortality related to HWC is critical for the well-being of wildlife and people. Using ten years of necropsies from free-ranging Asian elephants in the Northwestern Wildlife Region (NWR) of Sri Lanka, we quantified the effect of habitat quality on human–elephant conflict (HEC) (i.e., human-caused elephant mortality), hypothesizing that both artificial (e.g., forest cover loss) and natural (e.g., water availability, temperature) changes would be associated with elephant mortality. We collated necropsies from 348 elephants that died due to human activity from 2009 to 2018, comparing the results with data on forest cover loss, perennial water, rainfall, temperature, and human population sizes. Over the study period, we found that forest cover loss was significantly correlated with human-caused mortality in a district-specific manner. Similarly, access to perennial water and precipitation levels appeared to influence mortality, but not temperature, human population density, or percent land cover used for agriculture. We conducted emerging hot spot analyses to identify areas within the NWR that should be prioritized for protection, which included landscapes that are not currently protected (approximately 43% of the hot spots we identified). Similarly, areas that we identified as cold spots included many areas with minimal forest cover loss. Together, our results emphasize the impact that human activity can have on the measurable outcomes of HEC. We suggest that adaptive HWC management strategies that use retrospective analyses should inform any potential changes to the protection of vital wildlife habitats, such as the north central dry zone of Sri Lanka.
Highlights
Negative interactions between humans and wildlifeare practically ubiquitous, forming a multi-dimensional problem threatening the well-being of people and the sustainability of many wildlife populations [1,2,3,4,5]
Because forest cover loss was correlated with human-caused elephant mortality, we employed separate emerging hot spot analysis (EHSA) to identify areas of particular concern for human–elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation strategies
Our results suggest that habitat quality, including changes by humans, affects HEC
Summary
Negative interactions between humans and wildlife (human–wildlife conflict, HWC)are practically ubiquitous, forming a multi-dimensional problem threatening the well-being of people and the sustainability of many wildlife populations [1,2,3,4,5]. Negative interactions between humans and wildlife (human–wildlife conflict, HWC). Changes in the physical environment can exacerbate this conflict, and so it is imperative that we explore environmental factors that may be associated with HWC. Habitat quality changes over time [6,7], and wildlife managers may monitor variations in habitat availability and quality to predict the extent of HWC in a given area [8]. In this regard, habitats in tropical dry forests are of special concern
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