When, where and whom: assessing wildlife attacks on people in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Abstract

Wildlife attacks on people in and around protected areas have become one of the main challenges for wildlife management authorities. We assessed all correlates of wildlife attacks during 2003–2013 in the vicinity of Chitwan National Park, Nepal. We used data from various sources (discussion with stakeholders, field observations, questionnaire surveys). Wildlife attacks were significantly correlated to factors such as site, season and time, activity, gender and awareness. Moreover, 89% of recorded attacks occurred outside the Park. The number of attacks fluctuated widely and patterns of attacks were significantly uneven across seasons and months. Of the 87% of attacks that occurred during the day, 63% occurred in the morning. Most victims were male and c. 45% of attacks occurred when people were collecting forest resources or working on croplands. Attacks were carried out predominantly by rhinoceros Rhinoceros unicornis (38%), tigers Panthera tigris (21%), sloth bears Melursus ursinus (18%), elephants Elephas maximus (9%) and wild boar Sus scrofa (8%). The people attacked lived close to the Park, depended on farming for their livelihoods, and had little knowledge of animal behaviour. Attacks can be mitigated through proper management of habitats inside the Park and raising awareness of wildlife behaviour among local people. We recommend establishing a participatory emergency rescue team to deal with problematic animals in high-risk areas.

Ecosystem disservices matter: Towards their systematic integration within ecosystem service research and policy

“…They may be manifested via a direct negative impact on human well-being (e.g. animal attacks on humans, Silwal et al, 2017), or via a negative impact on an ES supply (e.g. pests affecting crop production, Wielgoss et al, 2014).…”

“…Such inclusive valuations must acknowledge that some people perceive something as a service, while others see it as a disservice (e.g. wildlife, Rescia et al, 2008;Silwal et al, 2017). Coupling ES and EDS will enable better inclusion of different visions and understanding of associated social conflicts (Barnaud et al, 2018).…”

“…In addition, due to synergies between ecological processes, ES and EDS may simultaneously increase (or decrease). For example, pathogen transmission or attacks on humans may increase as wildlife spreads (Caron et al, 2013;Silwal et al, 2017). Such cases reflect an "everything has a cost" situation where stakeholders may have to choose whether to promote an ES or to mitigate an EDS.…”

Spatial Concentrations of Wildlife Attacks on Humans in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

“…In Chitwan National Park (CNP) most poor people living near forests are of indigenous ethnicity and a lower caste, have no or few work opportunities, receive informal education and typically own a smaller piece of land, and survival problems are more acute for them than conservation issues. In places where people and wildlife share the same landscape for resource usage, wildlife leaves negative impacts on people and vice versa [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. In addition, wildlife damage leads to resentment and people resort to retaliatory killings, even of endangered species.…”

First stop human depredation to double the number of Bengal tigers

“…Within Nepal, human–tiger conflicts are on the increase (Dhungana et al ., ; DNPWC, ). Although there is estimated to be enough habitat to hold, at least, double the tiger population (Wikramanayake et al ., ; Joshi et al ., ) , human casualties do occur, due to tiger attacks outside the national parks (Silwal et al ., ). It should be noted that the number of people killed by tigers is much higher than the number of tigers killed by people – in Nepal tigers killed 29 people between 2009 and 2015, another eight people were badly injured, but only two tigers were killed by people (DNPWC , , , , , ; Rimal, ; Fig.…”