Keeping predators out 471
proofing houses and other structures elsewhere (Jackson & Wangchuck, 2004; Lichtenfeld et al., 2015; Mohammad et al., 2016). Our study also showed that herders’ attitudes to- wards snow leopards remained positive and may even have improved during the study, suggesting that fences can be an important tool for snow leopard conservation and for facilitating the coexistence of snow leopards and people in areas with similar conditions as in our study. However, the positive and potentially improving attitude towards snow leopards may also be a result of other snow leopard con- servation efforts in the study area, such as an insurance programme and a handicraft programme to provide sup- plemental income (Mishra et al., 2003). The potential im- pact of fences on herders’ attitudes thus warrants further examination. Herders’ attitudes towards wolves, in contrast, were more negative after the fences had been built. It is pos- sible that the difference in the timing of the surveys affected the attitude scores because the survey at the end of the study was done after the herders had moved out on the steppes, where they suffered losses only to wolves, which may have kept losses to wolvesmore fresh in herders’ minds and there- fore worsened the attitudes towards the wolves. Increasingly negative attitudes towards wolves could also have been a consequence of our conservation programmes focusing on snow leopards, whereas the conservation efforts for wolves have been minimal. This imbalance in conservation efforts could have led to the perception that fenceswere provisioned as part of our conservation actions for snow leopards, pos- sibly resulting in worsening attitudes towards wolves. This possibility will need to be addressed in future interventions. The herder community in the Tost Mountains suffered substantial livestock losses to snow leopards and wolves, with c. half of the losses of herded livestock occurring at night-time corrals. Depredation inside night-time corrals can be devastating as it often results in mass killings, with substantial negative impacts on herder economy and emo- tional well-being, which may lead to retaliatory and preven- tive killing of predators (Jackson & Wangchuck, 2004). In our study area at least one and possibly three GPS-collared snow leopards were killed during a 5-year period in re- sponse to repeated attacks on livestock at night-time cor- rals (Johansson et al., 2015). Developing measures to reduce night-time losses is thus crucial for establishing condi- tions that enable coexistence of snow leopards and people. Although there were no livestock losses to snow leopards or wolves in the fenced corrals during this study, we stress that the fences may not offer complete protection as it may be possible for predators to jump over or dig under the fences. Nevertheless, our study showed that fences are ef- fective at reducing livestock losses at night-time corrals and thus offer a good alternative to predator-proofing in si- tuations in which it is not possible or cost effective to build predator-proof structures (see Jackson & Wangchuck, 2004 for predator-proof structures).
The herders expressed high satisfaction with the fences
but also suggested making the fences larger to avoid crowd- ing and using more poles to make the fences stronger. If the fences are too small, herders may keep part of the herd out- side the fence to avoid negative effects on livestock health or wool quality (see Berger et al., 2013 for the importance of wool for herder economies). The herders also suggested com- plementing the fences with some type of wind shelter as the wind has a strong cooling effect in winter. We there- fore suggest building fences around existing corrals when possible to use the existing corral walls for wind protection, or attaching wooden planks to the lower parts of the inside of the fence when fences cannot be built around existing corrals. Adding planks may, however, require more poles to support the fence as the planks will catch the wind and increase the forces exerted on the fence. The herders also suggested that the electrical wire at the top of the fence could be removed without affecting fence effectiveness as wolves generally do not climb and it is unlikely that snow leopards would climb the fences. We nonetheless recom- mend keeping the wire at the top of the fence because pre- dators may climb in some situations. Field visits showed that the fences generally lasted well but that they tended to need some minor repairs such as adding soil or rocks to places where the soil had washed away under the fence. Burying the bottom 20–30 cm of the net in the ground when install- ing the fences could prevent the forming of holes at the bottom of the fences and would also provide additional support for the fences, but we stress that maintenance re- mains important to ensure the effectiveness and longevity of the fences. Integrating the fences assessed in this study into a per-
manent conservation programme is hampered by the rela- tively high cost of thematerials for the fences. For this study we bought the material and worked out an arrangement with the recipient families to repay the cost over 2–3 years. This meant that the herders did not have to cover the cost in a single payment but instead could spread the cost over time. We suggest that proper maintenance of the fences and tar- geting of areas with high predation pressure are important for the sustainability of a conservation programme using fences to reduce livestock losses following recommenda- tions by Mohammad et al. (2016). It is also important to build fences so that they do not restrict herder movements between camps, as this could result in increased grazing pressure and pasture degradation around fenced camp sites. This could be achieved by building fences at more than one camp site or by developing a design that allows for fences or parts of the fences to be moved between camp sites. We also recommend that the use of fences to re- duce livestock losses is combined with other conservation measures, as a multipronged approach with several con- servation efforts often provides more favourable outcomes than single solutions, even when those appear to be highly
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
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