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Packer, C.
Managing Human-Lion Conflicts
2009 Transactions of the 72nd North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference: 1-12
Large carnivores are a serious threat to human life and livelihoods in rural Africa, and etaliation against cattle-killers and man-eaters is escalating. Our research focuses on the ecology of human-lion conflict in important conservation areas of Tanzania so as to design feasible low-cost mitigation strategies. Although several carnivore species include livestock in their diet, lions are the most vulnerable to retaliatory killing. Pastoralists can reduce their risk of lion attack by herding their livestock in smaller herds and by restricting herding duties to adults rather than children. Man-eating is still common in large parts of Tanzania and Mozambique, and the primary route by which lions become man-eaters is through their reliance on bush pigs in agricultural areas. Bush pigs are serious nocturnal crop pests; people sleep in their fields at harvest time to protect their crops, and lions follow the bush pigs into the fields. Thus protecting crops against pig damage may conserve lions by reducing risks of man-eating.
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