Coexistence with carnivores: how do we better understand inter-relationships between humans and wild carnivores?

How do human beings live side-by-side with wild carnivorous animals? The Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ has developed research into human-carnivore relationships and this is promoting coexistence between humans and wild carnivores in both Africa and the UK.

Working in collaboration with landowners, government agencies and non-government organisations, researchers from the Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯'s Ecology, Conservation and Zoonosis Research and Enterprise Group have enabled decision-makers to prescribe key conservation, land and species management actions, and enabled co-existence between wild carnivores and people at local, regional and national scales.  

It has led to changes in the management of human-wildlife interactions by individual landowners and wildlife reserves in South Africa, and also in conservation agencies like the RSPCA and government bodies including DEFRA. Interpretation of wildlife distribution and density data has driven global and national reassessments of species conservation and management policies, and underpinned UK-wide rabies contingency planning. The research has boosted skills, opportunities and economic development in South Africa, while dissemination of new knowledge to the UK public through Springwatch, a high-profile television broadcast that mobilises public action, has increased public understanding of and coexistence with urban wild carnivores in Britain.

PhD in human animal relationships?  Visit our postgraduate pages on CONSERVATION, ecology and zoonosis. 

Living with wild carnivorous animals in South Africa 

Research by Professor Dawn Scott and colleagues has tackled both biogeographical and methodological questions as to how humans conflict with wild carnivorous animals. These include the factors influencing species distribution and abundance, the causes of changes in populations, and the outcomes of management practices. New protocols stemming from the research have combined traditional mapping and survey methods with citizen science via media engagement to provide a holistic solution to human-wildlife conflict. Results have showed, for example, that brown hyaena populations were more frequently found in protected areas than on ranch land, identifying unprotected areas as target sites for brown hyaena conservation programmes and allowing species-specific conservation priorities to be established. 

Prior to Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ research, little information existed on what led to human persecution of wild carnivores in South Africa, although it was known to be widespread. The team interviewed farmers and landowners in North West Province. Results showed that socio-economic factors interact with cultural belief systems to affect persecution, and that the success of conflict resolution programmes is greater where positive attitudes towards carnivores are fostered. 

Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ data on the distribution and abundance of six species of carnivore in North West Province has led to their declining populations being highlighted as a global conservation concern, in particular, hyaena, cheetah and leopard. The research has evidenced reasons to cease or limit culling of black-backed jackal in many areas and the recognition of protection that can be offered to brown hyaena.

Foxes Live ... and other wild animals in British cities 

On home soil, research by Dr Bryony Tolhurst and colleagues has focused on determining the distribution and abundance of wild carnivores in urban environments. Urbanisation is detrimental to many wild mammal carnivores, yet some thrive in towns and cities. This can result in conflict with humans arising from nuisance factors and zoonotic/veterinary disease transmission, with negative impacts on wild carnivore welfare and human wellbeing.  

Prior to this Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ research, up-to-date information on UK urban carnivore distributions was limited. There was little data on how humans affect wild animal welfare in cities. Urban ecology in mainstream media focused on nuisance or disease risk factors. The main cause of this data gap was the challenge of collecting field data at regional or national scales in the fragmented matrix of privately- and publicly-owned land present in towns and cities. 

Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ researchers confronted this challenge by developing a citizen science project linked to broadcasts on Channel 4, Foxes Live: Wild in the City. These included a call for the public to submit sightings of urban foxes to a website. Together with other surveys, the data was mapped digitally to determine fox abundance in eight UK cities, with the method also adapted to other species like Eurasian badgers. This has led, for example, to changes in the contingency planning against potential spread of rabies.

In the UK, sick or injured wildlife are often taken into rehabilitation centres before being released. However, the effect of captivity on animal behaviour and long-term survival is disputed. Working with the RSPCA, the Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ team researched the impact of rehabilitation on urban foxes and on hedgehogs during winter. Findings showed that temporary captivity of urban foxes can cause behavioural disruption and territory displacement and, in turn, affect survival and that over-winter survival of hedgehogs is not improved by rehabilitation. The RSPCA have used Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ evidence to confirm that their protocol of treating and releasing the hundreds of hedgehogs admitted each winter had no detrimental effect on animal survival.

How research informs and benefits from the BBC Springwatch series 

Popular media have provided a key means to develop and promote Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ research data and bring about changes in the national understanding of how wildlife in Britain coexists with the human population. For over a decade, Professor Dawn Scott’s regular television, radio and magazine content on urban mammals brought the concept of urban ecology into public discourse, with her sustained input into the content and delivery of wildlife-related programming benefitting researchers, broadcasters and the public. Since Foxes Live: Wild in the City in 2012, Dawn Scott worked in partnership with the BBC on eight series of Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch. These broadcasts combined Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ research findings and new citizen science data with wildlife footage (including viewer-generated content in later series) to provide unique insights into the behaviour of urban foxes, badgers, hedgehogs and other species. Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯-led research conducted as part of Winterwatch and Springwatch in 2014, for example, showed that approximately 50 per cent of urban fox food was taken by foxes via cohabitation with humans. Mobilising the media in this way has  altered the relationship between broadcasters and the UK public, such that citizens are no longer passive viewers but active participants in knowledge generation, helping to understand the way wild animals live with the citizens of Britain.