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Conflicts

Global implications on the basis of the leopards in Botswana

Conflicts between wild animals and humans arise especially when economic losses are involved. Predators like bear, wolf or big cat hunt for productive live stock of humans and herbivores threaten whole crops. Due to this farmer face financial losses or even are endangered to loose their means of existence.

Many governments, which establish reserves for protected wild species, offer compensations to the farmers for their live stock losses. Unfortunately this doesn't solve the conflict between humans and wild animals due to the following facts:

• The financial compensation is often far under the market value of the lost animal
• Farmers are afraid to walk the long administrative path to the compensation

Therefore they kill the leopards in Botswana.

We wish to develop sustainable solutions for this region with the emphasis to apply them to the human-animal conflicts throughout the world.

Productive livestock in Botswana

Cattle breeding takes centre stage in the economic and social life in Botswana. Over the last 50 years the cattle population rose from 400'000 animals to 3 million. That results in 6.2 cows and 2.9 humans per square kilometre. Such a rapid growth on livestock causes habitat loss for wild animals. Although the leopard is partially protected since 2000, this means that farmers are allowed to kill a leopard when it is hunting livestock outside of protected areas. Though the government offers financial compensation for lost livestock, it is far under the market value. Therefore, the farmers often simply shoot the suspected leopard without reporting it.

Livestock losses by big cats

From 2000 to 2002 a total of 857 livestock kills by leopards and 588 kills by lions have been reported at the four Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) stations in the study area. The amount of the encroachments rose during this period. Areas close to the park are affected more by lion attacks while leopards pose a problem to the entire district. Thereby small farmers are affected more than commercial farmers.

Leopards in the line of fire

Leopards accused of killing livestock often end up shot or poisoned. Some farmers bring the pelts to the DWNP stations. So far it was assumed that mainly males get killed. Analysing 37 pelt samples we discovered that females are killed as often as males. The amount of kills may therefore endanger the entire leopard population in Botswana.

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Relocations of the Wildlife Departement

In the Kweneng District, the policy of the DWNP is to trap leopards that hunt livestock and relocate them into Khutse Game Reserve. This strategy can be very problematic, because:

• the influence of the relocated animal on the resident animals is poorly understood.
• territorial leopards tend to return in their territory, even when it is far away. We have been able to place satellite collars on three of these relocated leopards. So far, each one has eventually returned to cattle grazing areas and two have been killed.
• there is the imminent danger of spreading diseases (Corona virus and cat IV).

Sustainable solutions

If you don't know the cause of a problem, you can't find a sustainable solution. Therefore, we want to determine which factors drive leopards to kill livestock on farmland.

• Does age or sex have an influence?
• Are environmental factors like season or abundance of prey responsible?
• Are the cattle simply not protected effectively?

Protecting live stock - an example

To promote the long-term conservation of the leopard in Botswana, we rely on collaboration with the local farmers. They need convenient and affordable methods to protect their livestock animals. The commercial farms in Jwaneng range up to 10'000 ha and generally only have some kind of perimeter fence, but no internal fencing. One farmer lost 28 calves and 2 foals during 6 month. We developed a maternity kraal with him on his farm. Expectant cows are brought into this enclosed area of 2x2 km shortly before calving. After we established this maternity kraal the farmer lost only one calf in a comparable timeframe. The cow in question calved outside of the maternity kraal. Hence the investment for the fence is profitable for big farmer in a very short time.

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