Journal of Threatened Taxa |
www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2024 | 16(6): 25283–25298
ISSN
0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)
https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8567.16.6.25283-25298
#8567 |
Received 02 June 2023 | Final received 22 May 2024 | Finally accepted 31 May
2024
Measuring people’s attitude towards conservation of
Leopard Panthera pardus (Mammalia: Carnivora) in the foothills of
Himalayan region
Megha Rani 1, Sujeet Kumar Singh 2, Maximilian L.
Allen 3, Puneet Pandey 4 & Randeep Singh 5
1,2,5 Amity Institute of Forestry and
Wildlife, Amity University, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India.
3 Illinois Natural History Survey,
University of Illinois, 1816S, Oak Street, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA.
4 Conservation Genome Resource Bank
for Korean Wildlife (CGRB), Research Institute for Veterinary Science and
College of Veterinary Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of
Korea.
1 smegha808@gmail.com, 2 btsujeet@gmail.com
(corresponding author), 3 maxallen@illinois.edu, 4 puneet.pandey09@gmail.com,
5 randeep04@rediffmail.com
Editor: L.A.K. Singh, Bhubaneswar,
Odisha, India. Date of
publication: 26 June 2024 (online & print)
Citation: Rani, M., S.K. Singh, M.L. Allen, P. Pandey
& R. Singh (2024). Measuring people’s
attitude towards conservation of Leopard Panthera pardus (Mammalia: Carnivora)
in the foothills of Himalayan region. Journal of Threatened Taxa 16(6):
25283–25298. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.8567.16.6.25283-25298
Copyright: © Rani et al. 2024. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the
author(s) and the source of publication.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.
Author details: Megha Rani pursuing PhD on human-wildlife
interaction at the corridor of Rajaji- Corbett Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand at
Amity University. Her research focuses on human-wildlife conflict and its
spatio-temporal pattern. Dr. Sujeet Kumar Singh, assistant professor at Amity University has more than 13 years of research experience in
conservation genetics and wildlife forensics of large carnivores. Dr.
Randeep Singh, associate professor, at Amity University, has more than 18 years
of experience in ecology, environment science remote sensing, and GIS
(forestry and ecology) from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing. Dr. Puneet Pandey, senior researcher at Seoul National
University is a wildlife scientist, educator, and conservationist, with more
than 13 years of experience in research, and teaching of
conservation genetics, wildlife crime investigation. Dr.
Alllen Maxmillan is a carnivore biologist at the
University of Illinois and Illionis Natural History Survey. His primary
research focus is using camera trapping to understand
solitary carnivores and ecological interactions.
Author contributions: Conceptualization: Megha Rani, Sujeet
Kumar Singh, Randeep Singh; Writing - original draft preparation: Megha Rani;
Methodology: Megha Rani, Sujeet Kumar Singh, Randeep Singh; Formal analysis and investigation: Megha Rani; Writing - review and
editing: Megha Rani, Sujeet Kumar Singh, Randeep Singh, Maximilian L. Allen,
Puneet Pandey; Funding acquisition: NA; Supervision: Sujeet Kumar Singh,
Randeep Singh
Ethics declaration: We obtained permission to conduct the
survey from the principal chief conservator of forest, Uttarakhand Forest
Department, (letter no. 2380/5-6 dated 9-2-2021, letter no 2949/5-6, date
17-05-2022,). We obtained verbal consent from the respondents who were interviewed, and they were briefed about the purpose of collecting the
information. Additionally, informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study before conducting the surveys, and all
respondent information was protected to
ensure that the right to privacy was not violated.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to
the director, Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University,
Noida, for their encouragement. We appreciate all the respondents for their
active participation in the survey. For assistance with conducting a
survey and providing human-leopard conflict data, we thank forest officials,
forest guards, UK Forest Department.
Abstract: Measuring people’s
attitudes about the large carnivores involved in human-wildlife interface, also
termed conflict or interaction, is an essential aspect of developing effective
conservation and management planning for human-carnivore coexistence.
Human-leopard (Panthera pardus) interaction is widespread and one of the
most pressing conservation issues within the global range of leopards. However,
there is a scarcity of information on local people’s opinions and attitudes
concerning carnivores in human-dominated areas. Our current study focused on
understanding the human dimensions of human-leopard interactions in the
multi-purpose landscape situated in the foothills of Shiwalik Himalaya,
Uttarakhand, India. Between January and May 2022, we conducted a
semi-structured questionnaire survey (N = 266) to understand how socio-demographic
factors impact the attitudes of local people toward leopard conservation in the
Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand, India. Overall, 61.7% of respondents had
positive attitudes toward leopards and supported leopard conservation,
primarily attributed to the aesthetic value of leopards. Using ordinal logistic
regression models, we found that male respondents and individuals with higher
education had a positive attitude towards leopard conservation. The majority of
respondents who conveyed positive attitudes towards leopard conservation
belonged to the more educated socio-demographic groups. As a follow-up,
specific studies need to be conducted on local people’s attitude about
compensation or compassionate payments, often disbursed as compassionate
payments, the response of the forest department to prevailing conflict, and
current awareness programs. These can be crucial factors towards shaping the
attitude of local respondents and promote human-leopard coexistence.
Keywords:
Coexistence, economic loss, felid-conservation, human-leopard conflict,
human-leopard interaction, human-leopard interface, people’s attitude,
socio-demographic factors, Uttarakhand.
Introduction
Humans have had an impact on the terrestrial
ecosystem for millennia by converting a large portion of the earth’s surface to
anthropogenic land usage (Barnosky et al. 2012; Ellis et al. 2013). An
increasing number of large carnivore species have been forced to coexist
with humans in altered landscapes as a result of landscape change
(Galán-Acedo et al. 2019). This habitat sharing at the human-wildlife interface
has led to a greater number of conflicts between large carnivores and people in
many areas, with negative effects on both local people’s livelihoods and
biodiversity conservation (Biset et al. 2019; Lamb et al. 2020). Across the
world, approximately 82% of the total distributional ranges of carnivores fall
outside of protected areas and are threatened by different human activity all
over the world (Braczkowski et al. 2023). These threats are mostly related to
competition with humans for habitat, prey, and livestock (Graham et al. 2005;
Treves et al. 2006; Wang & Macdonald 2006). This is important because
habitat loss, prey depletion, and the illegal killing of carnivores are the
main causes of the decline of carnivore populations globally (Ripple et al.
2014).
Over the past few decades, tigers Panthera
tigris and leopards have been among the species involved in human-wildlife
conflict, associated with increased incidence of attacks on people and
livestock in India (Naha et al. 2018). Among both predators, leopards are quite
often seen in the human-wildlife interface (outside of protected areas on the outskirts
of human settlements), where the transition between people and forest areas
makes them more prone to interaction with humans (Rahalkar 2008; Athreya et al.
2013; Naha et al. 2018). Globally, human-leopard interaction revolves around
livestock depredation (Ogada et al. 2003; Katel et al. 2014; Pena Mondragon et
al. 2017) or attacks on humans (Athreya et al. 2011; Kshettry et al. 2017;
Packer et al. 2019). As a result, leopards are often killed in retaliation,
placing them at greater risk and increasing the vulnerability of their
populations (Mishra et al. 2003; Treves & Karanth 2003; Nyhus & Tilson
2004), as mortalities from human-wildlife interaction can contribute to
declines in carnivore populations (Fuller 2001; Nowell & Jackson 1996;
Butchart et al. 2010). Leopard numbers are decreasing globally because of
habitat degradation, decline in prey base, retaliatory killing, and poaching
for body parts (Jacobson et al. 2016; Stein et al. 2020). The International
Union for the Conservation of Nature recently changed the classification of the
leopard from ‘Near Threatened’ to ‘Vulnerable’ in 2016 due to exploitation, a
decrease in its habitat, and loss of prey base (Stein et al. 2020). The leopard
is the most adaptive and widely dispersed large carnivore in both Asia and
Africa (Jacobson et al. 2016), distributed across many ecosystems ranging from
tropical forests, desert savannah, and alpine ranges (Nowell & Jackson
1996) to the outskirts of cities (Odden et al. 2014).
Human-leopard negative interaction is a serious
management and conservation issue because of opposition to and intolerance for
large carnivores by people in human-dominated landscapes (MacLennan et al.
2009). Identification of interface areas can help to develop management
strategies to reduce negative interactions, but it is crucial to have the
support of local communities for any conservation efforts (Pooley et
al. 2021). During the past several decades, India’s population has
increased by more than double, leading to increased interactions between humans
and leopards who live close to protected areas (Jhala et al. 2020). As a
result, leopards have attacked and killed people in different areas throughout
India, and leopards were also killed in retaliation (Mishra et al. 2003; Treves
& Karanth 2003; Nyhus & Tilson 2004; Chauhan et al. 2000; Badola et al.
2021; Ahmed & Khan 2022). Due to attacks and fear, conservation measures to
protect apex predators can be contentious and may face opposition from local
communities (Graham et al. 2005). In response to these emerging threats and due
to the ecological importance of species, different strategies have been
implemented to promote human-leopard coexistence. These include establishing
conservation incentives (Woodroffe et al. 2005; Dickman et al. 2011), livestock
insurance schemes (Morrison et al. 2009; Mishra et al. 2016),
and incorporating local people in conservation governance.
Understanding human attitudes toward leopards
is an essential aspect of human-leopard coexistence in shared landscapes (Marchini
2014; Verdade et al. 2014). Recent studies have highlighted many factors with
respect to sociocultural and socioeconomic aspects, such as local
community identity and values, social positioning, political influence,
and cultural viewpoints (Manfredo et al. 2009; Dickman et al. 2013; Pooley et
al. 2017) influencing people’s attitude towards large carnivore conservation in
shared landscapes, for example, age, gender, education levels, and family size
(Yosef 2015; Mekonen 2020; Merkebu & Yazezew 2021; Penjor et al. 2021),
livestock depredation, husbandry practices (Biru et al. 2017; Mkonyi et al.
2017; Teixeira et al. 2021), type of human-carnivore interaction, diversity of
livelihoods, size of the land owned, and the number of livestock owned (Gebresenbet
et al. 2018; Biset et al. 2019; Western et al. 2019). It is evident that
social, political, and cultural variables influence big carnivore persistence
(Aiyadurai 2016; Redpath et al. 2017; Athreya et al. 2018). One such
example associated with cultural viewpoint was presented in the study conducted
by Ghosal (2013) which reported that in Maharashtra large carnivores like
tigers and leopards are worshiped as ‘Waghoba/Waghya dev’, for both fear and
respect. In the political aspect, one such reason is the lack of lethal control
of carnivore populations in India, which may have contributed to opinionated
perception of the shared landscapes (Majgaonkar et al. 2019). Unfortunately,
the cultural and socio-political aspects of people-carnivore interactions
cannot be measured in the same way that ecological evaluations can (Karanth et
al. 2009). In India, the conservation of large carnivores, particularly
occurring outside of protected areas, is still challenging. Leopards have
coexisted with humans in multiple-use landscapes for centuries (Athreya et al.
2015), but studies on factors influencing their coexistence mechanism like the
people’s attitude towards leopard conservation are scarce.
Our current study focused on understanding the
human dimensions of human-leopard interactions in the multiuse landscape
situated in the foothills of Shiwalik Himalaya, Uttarakhand India. The purpose
of this study was to identify the components that account for human attitude
toward leopards, their conservation, and the motivations for these attitudes.
This includes (1) examining local people’s attitudes toward leopard
conservation and (2) identifying the determinants (demographic, socioeconomic,
and previous encounters with leopards such as attacks on humans and/or livestock)
influencing local people’s attitudes toward leopard conservation in the
vicinity of Rajaji Tiger Reserve. We formulated three hypotheses to address the
study objectives: (1) Men would more likely support leopard conservation as
women are less exposed to carnivores than males, and they are less tolerant of
them (Røskaft et al. 2003; Mir et al. 2015); (2) Educational status would
affect the attitude toward leopard conservation. Highly educated people being
more favourable towards leopard conservation, education can improve carnivore
tolerance by rationalizing attitudes (Woodroffe et al. 2005) and enhancing
people’s perspectives on predator conservation, and shaping their attitudes
(Espinosa & Jacobson 2012); and (3) People who lost humans and/or livestock
to wildlife in the past were expected to have negative attitudes towards such
animals (Mir et al. 2015), and that past leopard experience would negatively
affect the attitude towards leopard conservation.
Materials and Methods
Study area
We conducted the household survey in two ranges
(Motichur range and Shyampur range) of Rajaji Tiger Reserve (Figure 1). We
selected two study sites based on high density of leopard (16.90 ±1.44/100 km2;
Jhala et al. 2021), (45 leopard (35–36 95% HPD level) /100 km2;
Yadav et al. 2019) and a human-leopard negative interaction hotspot region
(Harihar et al. 2011). The Motichur and Shyampur range of the Rajaji Tiger
Reserve (820 km2), covers an area of 113 km2 and 101 km2
(Figure 1). The Rajaji Tiger Reserve (RTR) is situated in the lesser Himalayan
zone and the upper Gangetic plains biogeographic zone (Rodgers & Panwar
1988). The climate is subtropical type with three distinct seasons winter,
summer, and rainy with a temperature range that varies 23–46 °C in summer and a
minimum of 5 °C during winter. The annual rainfall varies 1,200–1,500 mm.
Within a 5-km radius of RTR, there are over 100 settlements, but our study area
consists of 13 villages with a total population of 28,449 with 13,170 male and
15,279 female (Uttarakhand Population census 2011),
and many of the population rely on adjacent forest resources such as fuelwood,
fodder, grass, livestock foraging ground, and locally available non-timber
forest products (Badola 1997; Chandola et al. 2007). The vegetation consists of
northern tropical moist and dry deciduous forests with species such as Shorea
robusta, Mallotus philippensis, Kydia calycina, Dalbergia sissoo, Acacia
catechu, Ougeinia oojeinensis, and Terminalia spp. The
dominant vegetation of the area is comprised of Sal Shorea robusta,
Rohini Mallotus philippensis, Khair Acacia catechu, Haldu Adina
cordifolia, Bahera Terminalia bellirica, Bargad Ficus
benghalensis, and Shisham Dalbergia sissoo. Prime mammalian fauna of
the park consists of tiger, leopard, Sloth Bear Melursus ursinus,
Striped Hyaena Hyaena hyaena, Barking Deer Muntiacus muntjak,
Goral Nemorhaedus goral, Chital Axis axis, Sambar Cervus
unicolor, Wild Boar Sus scrofa, and among reptilian fauna the Mugger
Crocodile Crocodylus palustris and King Cobra Ophiophagus hannah
(Joshi 2016). Motichur and Shyampur ranges were chosen based on the
recommendations of forest department employees and local key informants, who
reported a high prevalence of conflict in these two ranges. Most of the
communities in this area are (1) Garhwalis and Kumaonis, hill inhabitants who
are marginal farmers and also engaged in private jobs, and (2)
Gujjars, the transhumance pastoralists who live inside the forest and breed
cattle.
Data collection
We first collected the reported conflict incidents
involving livestock predation and human casualties by leopards from the year
2010 to 2021 from the Uttarakhand Forest Department and our survey (for the
details regarding methodology see Supplementary Material Text S1). Thereafter,
we collected the resident’s attitudes on human-leopard negative interaction
along with their response to the conservation of leopards in the RTR. The
literature analysis helped to construct the questionnaire for the survey (Naha
et al. 2018; Yadav et al. 2019) (Appendix 1). The questionnaire was pre-tested
with 30 respondents before being surveyed. A local forest guard was present
initially at the start of each interview for a formal introduction about the
subject matter and to increase the community acceptance. Prior informed consent
was obtained verbally from all participants. Their responses were later
translated into English during analysis. Each interview lasted for 40–45
minutes. A total of 266 randomly selected households were interviewed during a
survey from 13 villages in both study sites (Motichur and Shyampur range) of
RTR between January to May 2022 using a semi-structured questionnaire (a
standard set of questions that included both open and close-ended questions) in
the local language (Hindi), with a systematic sample of 10% of families per
village and maintaining an average distance of 500-800m between each residence
in the corresponding village. The questionnaire comprised three sections:
(i) sociodemographic (gender, age, family size, education, occupation, income,
livestock head) and experience of the respondent with leopards (any human
casualties or livestock depredation by these animals in respondents’ family in
the last 10 years); (ii) question on attitude toward leopard conservation
– to what extent do you agree that leopard conservation is important? The latter qualitative questions were
recorded on a five-point Likert scale as strongly disagree (-2), disagree (-1),
neutral (0), agree (1), and strongly agree (2), while the prior questions were
recorded on nominal scales (Supplementary Material Table S1). Thereafter, we
identified a total of eight predictor variables (Table 1), chosen from
attitude-based studies done in the past on wildlife conservation (Krester et
al. 2009; Mkonyi et al. 2017).
Data analysis
We quantified and analyzed all eight predictor
variables that could potentially impact people’s attitudes toward the
conservation of leopards. We checked the independent variables for
multicollinearity and found all the variables had generalized variance
inflation factor (GVIF) <5 (Fox & Monette 1992), indicating the absence
of collinearity among the predictor variables (Supplementary Material Table
S2). We used Ordinal Logistic Regression (OLR) to model ordinal dependent
variables as a function of continuous or categorical predictor variables
(Warner 2008; Adejumo & Adetunji, 2013) using the ‘MASS’ package with
‘polr’ function against all independent variables (Eboli & Mazzulla 2009;
Mutanga et al. 2016; Auster et al. 2019; Liang et al. 2020). We used this
initial global model to understand the importance and significance of each
variable. Thereafter, we formulated 12 potential models using the ‘AICcmodavg’
package using all eight predictor variables (Johnson & Omland 2004) to
understand drivers of attitudes. We used the Akaike information criterion
corrected for small sample sizes (AICc) to select the most plausible models
(∆AICc <2) to describe the people’s attitude toward leopard
conservation (Burnham & Anderson 2004). We computed the measure of
association between different explanatory variables and outcomes using the odds
ratio (Auster et al. 2019). We performed all statistical analysis for data
collected on different parameters of human-leopard negative interactions in R
v. 4.2.1 (R Development Core Team 2022) and the statistical software IBM SPSS
Statistics 26.0 (IBM SPSS 2019).
Results
Socio-economic condition of locals
Out of all respondents (N = 266), 62% were male
(N = 165) (Figure 2). Most of the people had primary education (42%; N = 112),
followed by secondary education, graduation, and illiterate status (Figure 2).
Based on the questionnaire survey, 44% of people were mid-d (41–60 years age
class), with an average age of 47 (±SE 0.9) (Figure 2). Out of all occupations,
service and daily wage labour were the two major occupations, employing nearly
74% (N = 196) of the people (Figure 2). Out of all the respondents, 41% (N =
110) of annual income ranged between INR 100,000–500,000 (Figure 2). The
average livestock owned per household was 3.45 (±SE 0.34). The average
landholding size per household was 0.03 (±SE 0.005 ha). The average family size
was found to be 6.36 (±SE 0.19). Approximately, 58% (N = 154) of households
reported being dependent on forest resources for their livelihood (i.e., for
fuelwood, non-timber forest product (NTFPs), and grass). Out of all the
respondents 44% (N = 117) were dependent on fuelwood as well as alternate fuel;
26% (N = 68) alone were dependent on fuelwood and 29% (N = 78) were dependent
on commercial fuel. Most of the respondents (70%, N = 186) owned livestock
which included cattle (74%), goats (18%), and poultry (8%).
The overall attitude towards conservation
From the survey, significantly most of the
respondents had positive attitudes towards leopards (61.7%), then neutral
(20.7%) or negative (17.7%) attitudes (χ2 = 19.75, df = 2, p <0.005) (Figure
3). There was also a significant difference in degree to which respondents
agreed on the conservation of leopards (χ2 = 17.76, df = 4, p <0.005). Out
of all the respondents, 33% (N = 88) strongly agreed with conserving leopards
in the surrounding landscape, while 26% (N = 69) strongly disagreed (mean =
0.3, ± SE 0.09) (Figure 4). The positive attitude of local communities towards
leopard presence in their surrounding environment indicated that respondents
found leopards to be important in the environment. Out of all the respondents
who had faced livestock death (10%) due to predation along with human injury
and death (5%) had a marginal negative attitude towards leopards which
accounted for (4%), and thought that leopard predation
on livestock occurred due to the easy availability in the surrounding vicinity.
Out of all the reported human casualties, most of these occurred inside PAs
while collecting fuelwood. Sixty-one percent of the people in the study area
were not aware of the role of leopards, 25% believed their primary role was to
kill livestock whereas 9% stated that they helped maintain ecological balance
(Supplementary Material Figure S1). Fifty-nine percent of respondents believed
that availability of domestic prey, i.e., livestock attracted leopards towards
human habitation and 26% of respondents stated that the decline of wild
prey was the primary reason for leopard predation (Supplementary Material
Figure S2).
Socio-economic drivers of people’s attitude
towards leopards and their conservation
The ordinal logistic regression resulted that,
the persons having a positive attitude toward the importance of leopard
conservation were positively related to gender (male) (ß = 0.75, p = 0.004) and
high literacy (ß = 0.82, p = 0.06) (Table 2). Thereafter, people with very few
livestock-head (ß = −0.27) and moderate annual income (ß = −0.17) had a
negative influence but did not significantly affect the people’s attitude
toward inference on the importance of leopard conservation (Table 2). However,
employment (ß = 0.97), and households experiencing livestock predation or human
casualties (ß = 0.17) were found to have a positive but non-significant
influence on the support of leopard conservation.
In our model comparison analyses predicting the
socio-economic drivers of leopard conservation, we obtained three top models
based on ∆AICc values (∆AICc <2) (Table 3;
Supplementary Material Table S3). The first top model signified that the
predictor variables including gender (ß = 0.40), age (ß = 0.05), and education
of people (ß = 0.26) influenced the attitude of people on leopard conservation
(∆AICc = 0.00, w = 0.28; Table 3). While in the second top model, gender
(ß = 0.43), family size (ß = -0.10), livestock head (ß = 0.18), and education
(ß = 0.26) were the predictors of people’s attitude toward leopard conservation
(∆AICc = 0.26, w = 0.25; Table 3). In the third top model, gender (ß =
0.39), age (ß = 0.06), employment (ß = 0.03), and education (ß = 0.28) were the
best predictors of people’s attitude toward leopard conservation (∆AICc = 1.94,
w = 0.11; Table 3).
Discussion
Conflicts between people and large felids
(including tigers and leopards) are common, especially where people reside in
proximity to forests in human-dominated landscapes (Inskip & Zimmermann
2009; Malviya & Ramesh 2015). An excellent example of this is the
Rajaji-Corbett landscape, where there have been many human-feline conflicts in
and around the parks, with disputes being recorded by numerous households,
villages, and Gujjar communities (Malviya & Ramesh 2015). Our study
highlights the factors (i.e., the gender and education of respondents) that
play a significant role in the attitude of local people toward leopards’
conservation in the Rajaji landscape. Specifically, we found males were more
likely to support leopard conservation, and the person with higher education
(i.e., graduate and post-graduate people) at the household level was more
likely to influence support toward leopard conservation. These factors play an
important role in influencing the attitudes of local people and the success of
human-felid coexistence.
The attitude of local people is an important
consideration for the conservation of leopards (Kshettry et al. 2017). The
majority of respondents in our study area were in favour of leopard
conservation. One possible explanation for our findings, as expressed by the
local community, was that the habitat would get conserved to assist protection
and existence of the species. Permanent human habitation is connected with
increasing exposure to large carnivores. Ericsson & Heberlein (2003)
proposed this to explain public attitudes towards mesopredators, which was
later demonstrated by Røskaft et al. (2003) for the people exposed to large
carnivores in Norway. Our study highlighted that the respondents had
differentiated opinions positive (61.7%) as well as negative attitudes (17.7%)
about leopards. Most of the respondents generally had a positive attitude
towards leopards, which may be attributed to the financial incentives dispensed
to locals following human/livestock loss due to leopard predation (Badola et
al. 2021); in some cases, financial incentives may even promote coexistence
(Mishra et al. 2003; Dickman et al. 2011). However, programmes whose primary
goal is to provide large compensation payouts typically fail to build tolerance
towards predators (Bautista et al. 2019) which may be reflected in our study
area as some people had a negative attitude toward leopards.
Our results are consistent with research on
conflicts with wild animals (Davenport et al. 2010; Thornton & Quinn 2010)
that show a mix of attitudes toward coexistence with wildlife (Szinovatz 1997;
Gidey et al. 2011). After the recovery of tigers in the Rajaji Tiger Reserve,
leopards shifted their distribution and diet, indicating that leopards were
forced to inhabit the peripheral habitats along the park boundary since
livestock are only available in the villages located in the surrounding
forested areas (Harihar et al. 2011). Therefore, a significant increase
in the occurrence of domestic prey in the diet of leopards from 7% to 32% over
the four years (Harihar et al. 2011) reflects the shift in dietary habits of
leopards. It appears that leopards started killing livestock and attacking
people because of frequent visits near to human settlements. This may have led
to some negative human-leopard interactions and negative attitudes among local
people. Similar studies in Uttarakhand also reported that livestock predation
by leopards tends to create a negative attitude (Naha et al. 2018; Mukeka et
al. 2019). We observed that households having more livestock held positive
attitudes toward leopard conservation but did not play a significant role in
shaping conservation attitudes toward leopards. This is similar to other studies
where people’s attitude is positively associated with the number of livestock owned and negatively associated with livestock
lost to predators (Naughton-Treves et al. 2003; Kideghesho et al. 2007).
Our results indicate that the employment status
of people did not have any significant negative effect on leopard conservation.
But in our study area, unemployed people with no or low formal education
primarily depend on NTFPs (Non-timber forest products) from the forest in the
form of fodder grasses, dry and fallen twigs and branches, leaf litter, and
leaves, fiddlehead, locally known as lingda which has some medicinal properties
and edible. This resource dependency is mainly due to free access to forest
resources for the poor or low-income groups for their livelihood (Islam et al.
2015). Most of the respondents in the interview mentioned: ‘Alternative fuels
are expensive for me, and it has become a compulsion to visit the forest and
collect fuelwood to meet my daily needs’. These factors tend to develop positive
attitudes of people, who visit forests and collect non-timber forest products
(Krishnakumar & Nagarajan 2020), toward leopard conservation.
Our results illustrated that men have a more
positive attitude towards leopard conservation in our study area than women. In
previous studies, gender also played a substantial role in predicting local
people’s perceptions of wildlife (Teixeira et al. 2021). Women are more
involved in forest-based chores, so they are more prone to negative interaction
with wildlife than men, as has been found in other studies (Mkonyi et al. 2017;
Trajçe et al. 2019). Previous research studies around RTR (Wildlife Institute
of India 2005) reported that the women’s participation in the eco-development
committees was low and they were more involved in accomplishing everyday chores
(Chandola et al. 2007). The finding of our study has been consistent with other
studies which showed the negative attitude of women due to greater fear of
dangerous carnivores (Roskaft et al. 2003; Kaltenborn et al. 2010; Prokop &
Tunnicliffe 2010). Possibly it is the result of less exposure to leopards than
in men, who frequently confront them in defense of their families and livestock
(Roskaft et al. 2003; Goldman et al. 2010).
Although it is believed that education broadens
people’s perspectives (Carter et al. 2012). Poverty, low literacy, and meagre
money are also thought to contribute to negative perceptions of carnivores,
such as the Sundarban Tiger (Inskip et al. 2013). Education and awareness
about predators can sometimes ameliorate negative attitudes (Bruskotter &
Wilson 2014; Lyngdoh et al. 2017) and mitigate conflict due to improved
knowledge of the risks and drivers of conflict (Treves & Karanth
2003). Our results showed that respondents with formal education
(i.e., graduates and post-graduates) expressed a more positive attitude toward
leopard conservation than those without any formal education. Our finding
confirms those of previous studies that showed that formal education can
improve attitudes and increase tolerance levels for large carnivores (Lindsey
et al. 2005; Woodroffe et al. 2005; Parker et al. 2014). We did not find any
significant association between age and family size with an attitude of locals
toward leopards’ conservation.
We acknowledge some limitations of our study.
Our study only focused on the sociodemographic, and economic factors affecting
people’s attitude toward the conservation of leopards. But we did not
quantify the wildlife values, interest in animals, empathy, norms, habits, and
other ecological variables in our analysis. Other limitations were
representativeness. It is especially in relation to accessibility to victims’
households related to human casualties by leopards, gender biases, and our
constraints with manpower time. In spite of these limitations, our study
highlights the effectiveness of coexistence among the local community in
mitigating human-leopard conflicts in and around RTR. This study could be
further used for future research on leopards and also on the management and
conservation of leopards in the area. Since the conservation of leopards
involves and affects the local population of RTR, the factors that foster such
positive perceptions of leopards should be acknowledged and linked ecologically
for further research on mitigating leopard-human negative interaction. In our
study area 47% of the respondents proposed solar fencing as an effective
mitigating tool leading to coexistence (Supplementary Material Figure S3).
Conclusions and
recommendations
Our findings have implications for leopard
conservation in and around Rajaji Tiger Reserve. Despite attacks on humans and
livestock, our research findings demonstrate that there is crucial local
support for leopard conservation, which could aid in the survival of leopard
populations. However, the villagers who expressed prejudice toward leopards
(26%) should not be ignored because it may lead to retaliatory killing. Women
and people with low education levels have been reported to have negative
attitudes toward leopards’ conservation; this cohort should be recognized and
offered a particular conservation programme. A specific study based on local
perception about compensation payments and the response of the forest
department to a prevailing conflict should also be conducted as it can be a
crucial factor in shaping the attitude of local respondents. Awareness programs
should focus more on people who are less positive, less educated, and less
knowledgeable about wildlife. These measures would improve people’s attitudes toward
wildlife in general and increase community awareness of wildlife conservation
(Lindsey et al., 2005). Park management should put effort towards refuting the
existing perception and better foster ties between the park and the community.
Multiple strategies could be used to target impacted communities,
and deciding the ones that are most suited should be done together with
the participation of concerned communities so that they represent their
cultural environment and are more likely to draw community support.
The finding of our study suggests that the
local communities play a vital role as major stakeholders in effective
conservation of leopards, and they promote coexistence with carnivore together
with the support of government officials. These partnerships can not only help
shape an individual attitude towards species conservation but also can increase
community engagement towards awareness programs for knowledge of leopard
importance. Sensitizing the local community about the need to conserve wildlife
can help develop tolerance towards carnivores (Woodroffe et al. 2005), but it
is sometimes difficult to develop a positive attitude among the community who
are intolerant towards large carnivores due to lacking interest (Kaczensky
2003). Therefore, it is recommended that to address the negative as well as
positive attitude, there be widespread community awareness, the development of
alternative livelihood options that lessen the pressure on wildlife, and the
development of efficient HWC mitigation measures in designated areas of RTR.
The Forest department at RTR has installed solar power fencing at some places
along village boundaries. It serves as an effective measure to reduce HWC
incidents (Krishnaswamy et al. 2022) and minimise encroachment on forest land
until management authorities take necessary action. Such conservation and
management inputs need to be further installed and repaired, as most of the
time fencing is damaged due to the frequent movement of elephants at places
where no boundary is demarcated between villages and PAs (Jasmine et al. 2015).
Data availability
The data used in this study are provided in
Supplementary Information.
Table
1. Variables at the village level used in regression models to predict the
attitude of people towards leopard conservation in Rajaji Tiger Reserve,
Uttarakhand.
|
Theme |
Variable (Abbreviation) |
Description |
Data scale |
|
Socio-economic |
Gender (Gen) |
Gender of the respondent. Two levels: Male and Female. |
Nominal |
|
|
Employment (Emp) |
Occupation of the respondents. |
Nominal |
|
Past leopard experience (PLE) |
Experience of losses incurred due to leopards such as human casualty
(attack/death), and livestock depredation. Two levels: Yes or No |
Nominal |
|
|
Annual income (INR) |
Dependence of respondents on income-generating activities. Four
levels: <50,000, 50,000–100,000, 100,000–500,000, >500,000 |
Nominal |
|
|
Age in years |
The age group of the respondent. Three levels: 18–40, 41–60, >60. |
Nominal |
|
|
Family Size (Fs) |
Number of family members in a household. Three levels: 0–3, 4–6, >6 |
Nominal |
|
|
Livestock-head (LH) |
Number of livestock in each respondent
household. Four levels: 0–5, 6–10, 11–15, >15 |
Nominal |
|
|
Education (Edu) |
Education received at the time of the interview. Four levels:
Illiterate, Primary School (1–10), Secondary (10–12), Graduate and above. |
Nominal |
Table
2. Ordinal Logistic Regression analysis of variables affecting attitude towards
leopard conservation, Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand. We note significant
values as: *p <0.05, **p <0.01, and ***p <0.001.
|
|
97.5% CI for odds ratio |
|||||||
|
Independent variable |
Category |
β |
S.E. |
t |
Odds Ratio |
Lower |
Upper |
P |
|
Gender |
Male |
0.75 |
0.27 |
2.82 |
2.12 |
1.25 |
3.56 |
0.004* |
|
|
Female (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Age |
41–60 |
0.21 |
0.28 |
0.73 |
1.23 |
0.71 |
2.12 |
0.46 |
|
|
>60 |
-0.003 |
0.35 |
-0.01 |
0.99 |
0.49 |
2 |
0.99 |
|
|
18–40 (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Family Size |
4–6 |
-0.142 |
0.49 |
-0.29 |
0.87 |
0.33 |
2.27 |
0.77 |
|
|
>6 |
-0.14 |
0.51 |
-0.27 |
0.87 |
0.32 |
2.36 |
0.78 |
|
|
0–3 (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Livestock-head |
6–10 |
-0.27 |
0.38 |
-0.71 |
0.76 |
0.36 |
1.60 |
0.47 |
|
|
11–15 |
-0.64 |
0.75 |
-0.86 |
0.52 |
0.11 |
2.28 |
0.38 |
|
|
>15 |
0.12 |
0.65 |
0.18 |
1.13 |
0.31 |
4.09 |
0.84 |
|
|
0–5(reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Education |
Primary |
0.01 |
0.28 |
0.06 |
1.01 |
0.58 |
1.77 |
0.95 |
|
|
Secondary |
0.49 |
0.36 |
1.36 |
1.64 |
0.80 |
3.34 |
0.17 |
|
|
Graduate and above |
0.82 |
0.44 |
1.84 |
2.27 |
0.94 |
5.45 |
0.06. |
|
|
Illiterate (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Employment |
Service |
0.97 |
1.57 |
0.61 |
2.63 |
0.11 |
57.64 |
0.54 |
|
|
Agriculture |
0.41 |
1.54 |
0.26 |
1.50 |
0.07 |
31.08 |
0.79 |
|
|
Daily wages |
0.63 |
1.55 |
0.41 |
1.87 |
0.09 |
39.59 |
0.68 |
|
|
Livestock farming |
2.19 |
1.61 |
1.36 |
8.97 |
0.38 |
211.75 |
0.17 |
|
|
Others |
0.45 |
1.80 |
0.25 |
1.58 |
0.04 |
54.28 |
0.79 |
|
|
No source of Income (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Past leopard experience |
Yes |
0.16 |
0.31 |
0.54 |
1.18 |
0.64 |
2.18 |
0.58 |
|
|
No (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
|
Income |
50,000–100,000 |
-0.16 |
0.36 |
-0.47 |
0.84 |
0.41 |
1.70 |
0.64 |
|
|
100,000–500,000 |
-0.18 |
0.36 |
-0.49 |
0.83 |
0.41 |
1.70 |
0.62 |
|
|
>500,000 |
0.06 |
0.65 |
0.09 |
1.06 |
0.29 |
3.85 |
0.92 |
|
|
<50,000 (reference) |
0.00 |
|
|||||
Table
3. Model comparison using Akaike information criterion corrected for small
sample sizes (AICc) showing best top three models (∆AICc <2) and β
coefficient values to identify factors influencing the attitude of local people
towards leopard conservation in Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand. We also
report the number of parameters (k), the change in AICc scores (∆AICc), the AIC
weight (w), and the loglikelihood (LL). We note significant values as: *p
<0.05, **p <0.01, and ***p <0.001.
|
Models |
K |
AICc |
∆AICc |
w |
LL |
Adjusted R2 |
Parameters |
Β |
SE |
P |
|
Gender+Age+ Education |
5 |
1001.00 |
0.00 |
0.28 |
-495.39 |
0.030 |
Intercept |
-0.75 |
0.39 |
0.060 |
|
Gender |
0.40 |
0.20 |
0.052 |
|||||||
|
Age |
0.05 |
0.14 |
0.686 |
|||||||
|
Education |
0.26 |
0.10 |
0.011* |
|||||||
|
Gender+ Family Size+ Livestock Head+ Education |
6 |
1001.26 |
0.26 |
0.25 |
-494.47 |
0.033 |
Intercept |
-0.67 |
0.50 |
0.182 |
|
Gender |
0.43 |
0.20 |
0.030* |
|||||||
|
Family Size |
-0.10 |
0.16 |
0.510 |
|||||||
|
Livestock Head |
0.18 |
0.14 |
0.204 |
|||||||
|
Education |
0.26 |
0.10 |
0.009** |
|||||||
|
Gender+Age+ Employment+ Education |
6 |
1002.95 |
1.95 |
0.11 |
-495.31 |
0.027 |
Intercept |
-0.84 |
0.47 |
0.073 |
|
Gender |
0.39 |
0.21 |
0.065 |
|||||||
|
Age |
0.06 |
0.14 |
0.642 |
|||||||
|
Employment |
0.03 |
0.09 |
0.70 |
|||||||
|
Education |
0.28 |
0.10 |
0.010* |
For
figures & supplementary files - - click here for full PDF
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