No abstract

Attitudinal differences toward wildlife have important implications for conflict management and when the species in question have strong cultural and religious associations, conflict mitigation becomes a challenging endeavor. We investigated farmers' attitudes toward two different crop-raiding macaque species, the rhesus macaque in northern India, and the bonnet macaque in southern India. Apart from regional differences in attitudes, we also assessed temporal changes in attitude toward the rhesus macaque. We carried out household surveys using a semistructured questionnaire to collect data. Our findings reveal that respondents in southern and northern India differ significantly in their views regarding species sanctity and preference for mitigation options. Although people's perceptions of the rhesus macaques had changed over time in northern India, farmers were still unwilling to cause harm to the macaques. We discuss the underlying causes of these observed differences in attitude and their impact on the management of human-macaque conflict.

The perceptions of wildlife managers regarding human-wildlife conflict (HWC) scenarios are likely to affect the outcomes of conflict mitigation measures. We studied the attitudes and perceptions of forest department personnel regarding the management of human-rhesus macaque conflict (HRMC) in Himachal Pradesh, northern India. We collected data through a questionnaire survey and used frameworks from organizational psychology to draw insights from our results. Forest department personnel belonging to different organizational levels varied with respect to their views on conflict mitigation measures. While the views of upper level management personnel aligned closely with the publicly-stated position of the forest department, the opinions of lower level management personnel were aligned with the opinions of farmers. Overall, wildlife managers differed from farmers in their opinions regarding causes and mitigation of HRMC. Our results indicate the presence of human-human conflict in the context of HRMC and we discuss the implications of this for the management of HRMC.

No abstract

No abstract