702 U. Prajapati et al.


FIG. 2 Non-parametric regression tree identifying factors affecting measured attitudes of 241 residents of Mount Abu town, Rajasthan, India towards sloth bears. Measured attitudes, with +1 indicating completely positive attitude and


−1 indicating completely negative attitude towards bears, are


summarized in box plots.


seasonal bias, we totalled attacks per season from both sources and performed a Pearson’s χ2 goodness-of-fit test on the pooled data. We independently assessed the factorsmost important for


bear sightings using generalized additive modelling and the information-theoretic approach by regressing numbers of bear sightings per grid cell against the six short-listed variables. We used generalized additive modelling to avoid assumptions regarding linear relationships. Data on bear attacks were in- adequate to run similar analyses.We created a list of a priori models, including a full model (with all variables) and a null model (assuming observed variations to be random) and used the Akaike information criterion corrected for small sample sizes (AICc) to determine the most parsimonious model. We used the R package gam for modelling (Hastie, 2018) and the R package MuMIn for model selection metrics (Bartoń, 2019).We used a reduction of two AICc units to sig- nify improvement between competing models (Burnham & Anderson, 2002). We ran full models both with the grid cell number as a spatial variable and without, to assess any poten- tial influence of grid cell identity. There was poor support for the full model with grid cell identity (4.2 AICc units higher than the full model without grid identity; see Results), and we therefore excluded grid cell numbers in other models. We generated plots of the component smooth functions against the scale of linear predictors to assess the directional- ity and nature of relationships. Results of generalized additive modelling were compared against respondents’ opinions re- garding factors influencing bear sightings.


Results


Residents’ attitudes towards bears Respondents (n = 241) encountered sloth bears widely across Mount Abu (Fig. 1). Residents largely had negative attitudes


towards sloth bears, with considerable model complexity when all the variables were included (Supplementary Fig. 1). Considering all variables collectively, residents’ attitudes were shaped by gender and age (P,0.001), with women and younger men (,36 years of age) having the most negative attitudes towards bears (Fig. 2). Considering other variables individually, measured attitudes showed little variation across education levels (Supplementary Fig. 2; Kruskal–Wallis χ2


5 = 8.55,P = 0.13). However, attitudes


5 = 24.47,P= 0.0009). No human fatalities caused by bear attacks, or retaliatory action against sloth bears, were reported. Bear attacks on people were reported to occur most fre-


varied considerably across occupations, with home-makers (all women interviewed) having the most negative attitudes, people working in a business establishment having the most positive, and farmers and students having the smallest range of attitudes scores (Supplementary Fig. 2;Kruskal–Wallis χ2


quently on roads and were widespread across the town (Fig. 1). Most residents reported increases in bear encoun- ters and attacks within the last 2 years (Fig. 3a). A majority of respondents had encountered bears in the week before being interviewed, with most encounters occurring between 18.00 and 24.00 (Fig. 3b,c). Most respondents believed that bears entered Mount Abu to forage on rubbish, and that access to the town was facilitated by the fact that it is sur- rounded by forests (Fig. 4a). According to the interviewees, bears primarily seek food waste from hotels, and sweets in rubbish (Fig. 4c). Respondents indicated that bears attacked when they were surprised by an encounter with people, or when they had cubs (Fig. 4b).


Secondary data on bear attacks


Forest Department records provided data on 19 attacks in 13 locations that were distributed widely across the town (Fig. 1).


Oryx, 2021, 55(5), 699–707 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000216


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