Keeping predators out: testing fences to reduce livestock depredation at night-time corrals


GUSTA F S AMELIUS,KULBHUSHANSINGH S UR Y AWA NSHI ,J ENS FRANK B A Y ARJARGAL AGVA A NTSEREN,ERD E N EC H IME G BAASANDAMBA TSERENNADMID MIJI DDORJ,ÖRJAN JOHANSSON


LKHAGVASUMBEREL TUMURSUKH and CHARUDUTT MISHRA


Abstract Livestock depredation by large carnivores is a global conservation challenge, and mitigation measures to reduce livestock losses are crucial for the coexistence of large carnivores and people. Various measures are employed to reduce livestock depredation but their effectiveness has rarely been tested. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of tall fences to reduce livestock losses to snow leopards Panthera uncia and wolves Canis lupus at night-time cor- rals at the winter camps of livestock herders in the Tost Mountains in southern Mongolia. Self-reported livestock losses at the fenced corrals were reduced from a mean loss of 3.9 goats and sheep per family and winter prior to the study to zero losses in the two winters of the study. In con- trast, self-reported livestock losses in winter pastures, and during the rest of the year, when herders used different camps, remained high, which indicates that livestock losses were reduced because of the fences, not because of temporal variation in predation pressure. Herder attitudes towards snow leopards were positive and remained positive during the study, whereas attitudes towards wolves, which attacked livestock also in summer when herders moved out on the steppes, were negative and worsened during the study. This study showed that tall fences can be very effective at re- ducing night-time losses at corrals and we conclude that fences can be an important tool for snow leopard conserva- tion and for facilitating the coexistence of snow leopards and people.


Keywords Canis lupus, carnivore conservation, coexistence, conflict mitigation, conservation conflict, livestock depreda- tion, Panthera uncia, preventative measure


Supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319000565


Introduction


emotional trauma for livestock owners and can lead to retaliatory and preventive killing of carnivores (Treves & Karanth, 2003; Woodroffe et al., 2005). Developing mea- sures to reduce livestock losses is thus crucial for successful conservation of large carnivores and for establishing condi- tions that facilitate their coexistence with people (Treves & Karanth, 2003). Numerous measures have been developed to reduce livestock losses (e.g. barriers, deterrents and live- stock guarding) but their effectiveness has rarely been tested (Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009; Eklund et al., 2017; van Eeden et al., 2018). Livestock depredation by snow leopards Panthera uncia


L


GUSTAF SAMELIUS*† (Corresponding author, KULBHUSHANSINGH SURYAWANSHI‡ (


orcid.org/0000-0002-1067-9796), orcid.org/0000-0003-1155-0748), ÖRJAN


JOHANSSON*( orcid.org/0000-0002-9977-0405) and CHARUDUTT MISHRA‡ Snow Leopard Trust, 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North, Seattle, USA E-mail gustaf@snowleopard.org


JENS FRANK GrimsöWildlife Research Station, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Riddarhyttan, Sweden


BAYARJARGAL AGVAANTSEREN,ERDENECHIMEG BAASANDAMBA,TSERENNADMID MIJIDDORJ and LKHAGVASUMBEREL TUMURSUKH Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia


*Also at: Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Riddarhyttan, Sweden †Also at: Nordens Ark, Hunnebostrand, Sweden ‡Also at: Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, India


Received 11 January 2019. Revision requested 12 February 2019. Accepted 1 May 2019. First published online 10 February 2020.


and wolves Canis lupus is a concern in the mountains of central Asia where livestock herding is the main occupation of local people (Mishra et al., 2003; Li et al., 2013; Aryal et al., 2014). Conservation actions to reduce and compensate for livestock losses to these predators include insurance pro- grammes, handicraft programmes to provide supplemental income, and predator proofing of small pens and houses where livestock holdings are small and can be kept inside these structures at night (Mishra et al., 2003; Jackson & Wangchuck, 2004). However, there are currently no effi- cient means to reduce night-time losses for large livestock holdings where it is not possible or economically feasible to build predator-proof corrals or other structures that can hold large livestock herds (but see Mohammad et al., 2016 for building walled structures that can hold up to 700 live- stock). Predator attacks at night-time corrals and other night-time holdings can be devastating to herders as they often result in mass killings that have a large impact on herder economy and emotions and thereby also herder attitudes towards large carnivores in general (Jackson &


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2021, 55(3), 466–472 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319000565


ivestock depredation by large carnivores is a major conservation concern that results in economic loss and


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164