540 L. Sibanda et al.
a shortlist of candidates recommended by local traditional lea- ders and the wider community.We selected candidates based on previous direct experience with lions (e.g. peoplewho had physically chased a lion), liter- acy, residency within the local area and good standing in the community. Community Guardians were then trained by the Trans-Kalahari Predator Project (WildCRU, University of Oxford, Oxford,UK) in lion tracking and the use of radio- telemetry, GPS data collection protocols (e.g. livestock dep- redation assessment) and conflict mitigation techniques (e.g. herding, kraal fortification). As part of the programme’s early warning system, during
2013–2017 we identified 21 lions (males = 14; females = 7; Mabale = 6; Tsholotsho = 9; Victoria Falls = 6) across nine prides/coalitions and fitted them with GPS collars to monitor their movement. Only one or two individuals were collared per pride/coalition, and lions were selected for collaring based on their home ranges significantly overlapping with the local farming communities outside the protected areas and whether the animals were likely to disperse. The collars recorded the lions’ locations every 2 hours. Whenever lions were within 3 km of a protected area boundary, Community Guardians sent a warning message (via WhatsApp; Meta Platforms, Menlo Park, USA) to a network of farmers within treatment villages. Lions that crossed the Park boundary and approached human settlements would be hazed (chased) by the Com- munity Guardians and volunteers within the treatment villages using a vuvuzela, a plastic horn that produces an irritating sound of c. 127 decibels (Petracca et al., 2019). A long-term dataset collected using a combination of spoor and camera-trap surveys suggest the lion population density (c. 2.5 lions/100 km2) remained constant throughout the study period (WildCRU, unpubl. data). The Long Shields programme was piloted in Mabale communal area for 6 months before expanding to Tsholotsho in January 2013 and Victoria Falls in June 2016.
Monitoring of livestock depredation and lion mortality
We monitored livestock attacks by lions and retaliatory lion killing by farmers over a 10-year period (January 2008– December 2017). We define an attack as an event in which a carnivore killed or injured one or more livestock species. The majority of livestock depredation and lion mortalities were reported directly to programme personnel, with an in- cident report form used to collect event details. For all inci- dents (attacks on livestock or lion mortality), we recorded the date and time of the incident, the date when it was re- ported, GPS coordinates of the household and/or incident site, the predator species most likely involved, livestock spe- cies attacked (cattle, donkey, sheep, goat), whether the in- cident occurred within or outside a kraal, circumstances
leading to retaliatory lion killing, and the cause of lion mor- tality (e.g. wire snare, shooting or poison). To assess the ac- curacy of carnivore identification by the farmers, we showed each farmer pictures of different carnivores and their paw prints, which they were asked to identify. To validate in- cidents of livestock loss, we verified each event by visiting the incident site. We also confirmed all incidents with the village head who, as part of their official civil responsibil- ities, keeps a register of all livestock losses to wild carnivores in the village.
Evaluating programme success
To examine the effects of the Long Shields programme, we used generalized linear mixed-effect models(GLMMs; Zuur et al., 2009) with a Poisson distribution in R 4.0.0 (R Core Team, 2019). The models were fitted using the function glmer in package lme4 (Bates et al., 2015). The number of livestock lost to lions (mean per village per year) was the response variable. The following variables and their interac- tions were included in the model as fixed effects: location (Mabale, Tsholotsho or Victoria Falls), treatment status (treatment or non-treatment) and time in relation to pro- gramme implementation (before or after). The effect we were most interested in was the interaction between treat- ment and time, as this tested the null hypothesis that there was no difference between treatment and control in the temporal trend. To control for clustering, we included village in the models as a random effect variable. To test the effectiveness of the community-based programme, we performed the likelihood ratio test (Bolker et al., 2009), comparing models with and without the effect of interest. We validated models to evaluate the presence of over- or under-dispersion through the inspection of residuals. Finally, to examine the association between the number of livestock lost to lions and the number of lions killed in re- taliation (and vice versa), we performed a Pearson correl- ation test in R, using each year (i.e. the number of livestock or lions killed in that year) as a data point.
Results
Depredation Over the 10-year period, a total of 1,987 domestic animals were attacked by lions in 990 confirmed incidences (mean = 16.59 ± SD 4.24 animals per month). The majority of livestock depredation incidents involved cattle (67%), followed by donkeys (17%), sheep or goats (14%) and other animals (e.g. pigs; 2%). The highest number of incidents (40%) occurred in Victoria Falls, followed by Tsholotsho (34%) and Mabale (26%). The proportion of lion attacks on livestock inside and outside protective
Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 537–545 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000302
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