The emergence of human–wildlife conflict management: turning challenges into opportunities

“As a result, the populations of those species which are unable to adapt to altered habitats may invade the marginal habitats or decline in number [26, 29].”

“Human–carnivore conflicts are complex and shaped by a suite of cultural, economic, historical, and ecological factors that may affect the use and effectiveness of techniques for mitigating livestock depredations (Messmer 2000, Messmer et al. 2001, Dickman 2010).”

“This has been a hotly contested issue around which opinions have been polarized (Hughes et al. 1998; Potts 1998; Mitchell 2000; Thirgood et al. 2000a).”

“Enabling local communities to take action and reduce the impact of human-elephant conflict on their livelihoods is thought to improve communities’ perceptions of elephants and conservation (Naughton et al. 1999; Messmer 2000).”

“Previous studies (Forgas 1998; Wilson 2008) support the idea that positive attitudes increase cooperation helping to reach an optimal agreement between the parties in a participatory approach, which in turn increases ownership of the outcome, supporting commitment and action of wildlife conservation goals (Messmer 200…”

“Black bear–human conflict is increasing in frequency and magnitude (Conover and Decker 1991, Conover 1998, Messmer 2000, Beckmann et al. 2004).”

“…the potential for human-wildlife conflict, resulting in property damage, economic losses, or human injury (DeStefano and DeGraaf 2003, Timm et al. 2004, Kaplan et al. 2011), and the mitigation of conflict is becoming an important aspect of urban wildlife conservation (Conover 1997, Messmer 2000).”

“Our encroachment on wild places is increasing and diversifying (Messmer 2000), hence managing non-lethal interactions between humans and wildlife is becoming increasingly important.”

“Farmers are least tolerant of damage to high-value cash crops (Messmer, 2000), so the increase in the market value of agricultural land further worsens the HEC found in China.”

“Any factor, such as cropraiding, which affects maize production, is a serious problem from political, economic, social and cultural perspectives (Mishra 1982; Barnes 1996; Messmer 2000).”

“Interactions between humans and wildlife occur across a variety of social and landscape contexts ( Woodroffe, Thirgood, & Rabinowitz, 2005 ; Messmer, 2000 ).”

“Recently, conflict between wildlife and humans has attracted the attention of ecologists, conservationists, and community development researchers (Messmer 2000).”

“This task should be viewed as an opportunity for tackling challenges head‐on while developing an optimal strategic approach, one that aims to support negatively affected parties while allowing opportunity to maximise potential benefits (Messmer, 2000).”

“As such, managers will need better information regarding the cause of these conflicts to help mitigate them (Messmer 2000).”

“Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) has increased in recent years, becoming a major worldwide concern (Distefano, 2005; Madden, 2004; Messmer, 2000; Osborn and Parker, 2002; Thapa, 2010).”

“However, residency has become more variable, with people relocating between urban and more rural settings (Messmer, 2000).”

“Management approaches that focus on the physical impact of species on nature and people have often represented a constraint to the efficient management of wildlife (Messmer 2000, 2009;Mascia et al. 2003; Treves and Bruskotter 2014).”

“When the needs and behaviors of wildlife have a negative impact on human goals and interests, or the goals and interests of human have a negative impact on the needs and behaviors of wildlife, human–wildlife conflicts will develop, a common example is wildlife damage [11,12].”

“In these regions, competition between local communities and wild animals, for the use of natural resources, is particularly intense and direct [5].”

“However, residency is becoming more fluid as many people who grew up in rural areas move into urban areas and some urban residents relocate to a rural lifestyle (Messmer 2000).”

“The effectiveness of behaviour-based models offers promise for many agriculture–wildlife conflicts because most agricultural damage can be explained by adaptive foraging behaviour of animals (Messmer 2000; Conover 2002).”

“The modification of natural habitat for human uses such as farming has led to a myriad of conflicts between humans and wildlife, such as predation of stock by wild predators (Beattie et al., 2020; Hill, 2015; Manral et al., 2016; Messmer, 2000; Western et al.)”

“In modern times, HWC can be “real or perceived, economic or aesthetic, social or political’’ [3].”

“Certainly, there are commonalities between some reasons for the emergence of “human-wildlife conflict” studies in the late 1990s (Mesmer, 2000), and now “human-wildlife coexistence” studies.”

“needs of people, wildlife, and habitat.(15) As a result, there is an increasing interest among risk managers to better understand risk perceptions associated with wildlife and wildlife management, as well as factors that influence those perceptions and how they spread.”

“Human-wildlife conflict refers to negative interactions between humans and wildlife, whether they are ‘real’ or ‘perceived’ (Messmer 2000; Torres, Oliveira, and Alves 2018).”

“We see that there is currently scope to reconcile these three perspectives on wolf aversion within a social constructivist framework that take rumors as a gateway to understanding the ‘continuous interaction’ of social, political and cultural forces in human–wildlife conflicts (Messmer 2000).”

“…mammal; minke whale; photo-ID; spatial ecology; tourism impact As the frequency of human-wildlife interactions is increasing globally, we have an increasing need to understand how human-induced non-lethal impacts, in the form of behavioral disruptions, affect wildlife populations (Messmer 2000).”

“In some areas, increases in predator populations following successful conservation programs and protective legislation have exacerbated past conflicts (e.g. Messmer 2000).”

“Messmer (2000) cited many speci:c studies that documented the economic losses and adverse impacts caused by wildlife to livestock, timber, agricultural crops, ∗ Corresponding author.”

“Ranching and forestry may also contribute to low pond densities in the Municipal Districts as beaver tend to be perceived as a nuisance to these two industries (Bhat et al. 1993; Conover 1994; Messmer 2000; Törnblom et al. 2011).”

“However, these days, urban dwellers and other wildlife stakeholders such as investors are also involved in wildlife damage (Messmer, 2000).”

“Human-wildlife conflicts—negative interactions between humans and wildlife that pose a real or perceived threat to either party [3]—are substantial causes of wildlife mortality and population decline, and manifest differently across taxa and anthropogenic contexts [4, 5].”

“These instances are exacerbated when guided conservation policies facilitate wildlife population recovery, but existing habitat is unable to support these increased numbers, increasing human-wildlife conflict (HWC; Messmer, 2000).”

“This growth of residential development in the foothills is leading to a more heterogeneous rural population and environment (Messmer, 2000).”

“Though these benefits of scavengers to humans are increasingly recognized, negative impacts of large populations or aggregations of facultative scavengers such as increased predation on other wildlife (Fletcher, Aebischer, Baines, Foster, & Hoodless, 2010; Rees, Webb, Crowther, & Letnic, 2015), disease transmission (C…”

“The findings of this study, through scat analysis indicates occurrence of a negative interactions between humans and wildlife thus a situation of real economic and social human - wildlife conflict (Messmer, 2000).”

“With interest in human–wildlife conflict expanding (Dickman 2010), so too has the field of human–wildlife conflict management, a subject of study inclusive of “all situations that involve any and all negative interactions between humans and wildlife” (Messmer 2000, 100).”

“It is often highlighted that participation can serve as a good instrument for mitigating or resolving conservation conflicts (Messmer, 2000; Treves et al., 2006, 2009; Reed, 2008; Jones-Walters and Ç il, 2011).”

“In these regions, competition between local communities and wild animals, for the use of natural resources, is particularly intense and direct (Messmer, 2000).”

“Conflicts between agricultural interests and wildlife conservation are becoming more and more serious on a global scale (Messmer 2000; Sangay and Vernes 2008; Barua et al. 2013; Redpath et al. 2013).”

“…human-wildlife interactions has been a relatively recent development within the conservation literature, it is by no means a novel subject matter to the innumerable societies across the world who have been sharing space with animals for centuries (Ingold, 2000; Messmer, 2000; Bhatia et al., 2019).”

“Efforts to manage human–wildlife interactions and conflict may move between periods of success and failure, often linked to engagement levels by select stakeholder groups (Messmer, 2000; Moswete et al., 2012).”

“…of the high cost of recruitment and selection (Pfeffer 1998), the lag and productivity loss during the assimilation period (Davies 2001), the likely loss of business opportunity (Walker 2001), poor customer relationship (Clarke 2001; Messmer 2000), and hidden cost of loss productivity (Das 2002).”

“Reported human–wildlife conflicts have increased in frequency and magnitude ( Carr & Burguess, 2004 ; Elicker, 2006 ; Messmer, 2000 ).”

“Other conflicts, whether perceived or actual may result when wildlife damages crops, are involved in collisions, or threaten and kills people (Messmer 2000; Madden and McQuinn 2014).”

“Urban wildlife may also present threats to human safety, through attacks, vehicle collisions, water contamination and the transmission of zoonotic diseases (Zinn andAndelt 1999; Messmer 2000; Conover 2001; Pruett-Jones et al. 2007).”

“…change including elimination of predators, altered land use and climatic change may be responsible for high impact in the native range (e.g. raccoons flourish in the heterogeneous foraging habitat created by the interspersion of croplands and woodlots; Messmer, 2000; Beasley et al., 2007).”

“To date, human–wildlife conflicts have come to be considered a significant threat to both biodiversity conservation and the economic growth of local communities [6–12].”

“According to Messmer (2000), the success of wildlife conservation and human-wildlife conflict reduction largely depends upon the ability of managers to recognise, embrace and incorporate differing stakeholders’ values, attitudes and beliefs; a participatory management planning approach might not only encompass all the…”

“Moreover, landscapes become increasingly anthropogenic and fragmented which causes wildlife to come more and more into contact with human activities (Messmer 2000, Barua et al.”

“Wildlife damage in North America costs approximately $3 billion per year (Conover et al. 1995) and human-wildlife conflicts are on the rise (Conover and Decker 1991), particularly in urban areas (Messmer 2000).”

“Mapping or Group Model Building (as described more extensively by Newig et al. (2008)), that are dependent on the openness and commitment of the participants – and therefore seem to be less suitable for conflict situations including issues in the subject sphere – make it possible “to elicit broad information about the…”

“Factors including human population growth rate, increasing land scarcity, increasing populations of wild animals as a result of improved conservation efforts and climatic factors challenge wildlife conservation in Africa and elsewhere in the world where agriculture is an important part of rural livelihoods (Messmer 20…”

“The phrase “human–wildlife conflicts” describes any negative interactions between humans and wildlife, including those that are either real or perceived, economic or aesthetic, social or political (Messmer 2000, 2009).”

“The changes degrade and reduce wildlife habitats (Messmer 2000, Ogutu et al. 2014 a ), accentu-ating the frequency and intensity of human– wildlife conflicts.”

“Consequently, there is a need to approach conservation attitude assessment through a framework that recognises the complexity of social-ecological systems by integrating ecological, economic and social perspectives using concepts and methods from a range of disciplines [6,23,31].”

“Without adequate assessment of public opinion and involvement, conservation initiatives involving such species may face harsh opposition and result in costly and unwanted political battles (Jacobson & McDuff, 1998), whereas success of projects designed to resolve human-wildlife conflicts may largely rest upon the unde…”

“Since human-wildlife conflicts are increasing [1] the development of cost-effective methods for reducing damage or conflict levels is important in wildlife management.”

“Conflicts may be real, or perceived by people (Bennett 2016; Messmer 2000).”

“A conflict management approach has to be implemented to solve conflicts between stakeholders, treat wildlife ethically, and prevent the development of future conflicts (Chase et al., 2000; Messmer, 2000; Sirivongs and Tsuchiya, 2012).”

“These circumstances, along with growing human and livestock populations, have led to increased livestock depredation (Messmer 2000, Krafte Holland et al. 2018).”

“The nature and intensity of HWCs may vary by the status of the species, both temporally and spatially, as well as the socioeconomic status of the humans impacted by the conflict (Messmer 2000).”