Search

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 followup, 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental education has the potential to help reduce negative human–wildlife interactions by increasing positive attitudes toward wildlife and providing participants with knowledge and skills that can help mitigate conflict situations and promote safety. To promote positive human–wildlife relationships, effective programs could be implemented widely in areas near remote wildlife reserves and protected areas. We created and evaluated a new environmental education program for 10‐ to 13‐year‐old students in rural schools in India where human–wildlife conflicts with large mammals frequently occur. Between July 2019 and March 2020, we tested the program at 129 schools, reaching 4331 students. The program, which was iteratively designed to fit the local context, is both cost‐effective and scalable. We found that participation in the program resulted in a significant positive increase in local environmental knowledge, in knowledge of safe behaviors, and in some measures of environmental attitudes. This paper reports on the lessons learned while creating this program that may help other organizations interested in using environmental education in regions where negative human–wildlife interactions frequently occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The escalating conflict between human and wildlife due to competing demands for limited space and resources has raised concerns worldwide, and understanding the dynamics of this conflict is crucial for devising effective strategies and policies. The present study is an attempt to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the published literature on the topic of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) for the period of January 1991-February 2023. For carrying out the analysis of the data obtained from Web of Science, the 'Bibliometrix' tool, developed through the R programming language, was used. The findings of the study revealed that a total of 1592 documents have been published on the HWC research topic from January 1991 to February 2023 within 338 sources. It is observed that the number of publications has continuously increased since 1991, with an annual growth rate of 5.16%. A total of 4995 authors have contributed to the targeted research field. Of the 388 sources, the journal 'Biological Conservation' is the most relevant and productive, followed by 'Oryx' and 'Human Dimensions of Wildlife'. Based on the country production analysis, authors from 110 countries have contributed to the field, and the USA has the highest frequency of publications on HWC, followed by the UK and Australia. The USA also has the highest multiple country publications and has collaborated with 88 countries, with the highest frequency of collaboration with the UK, followed by India, Australia, and South Africa. The most frequently used keywords include 'human-wildlife conflict', 'conservation', 'conflict', 'human-wildlife', 'wildlife', 'wildlife management', 'livestock', 'management', 'coexistence', and 'carnivore'. The present study identifies the most prolific authors, sources, institutions, and countries, as well as the study hotspots in the subject of HWC, which may assist researchers in finding the best working and publication platforms. Further, it may also help them identify reliable research partners to acquire the best findings and develop more effective strategies and policies to address the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Otter populations are declining across Asia, especially outside protected areas. In landscapes shared by humans and otters, it is vital to understand the factors affecting human-otter coexistence. We conducted 551 questionnaire surveys and used mixed methods to evaluate human-otter interactions and people's attitudes towards otters across a 3,300 km2 forest-agriculture mosaic near Kanha National Park in Central India. Otter presence was reported from 94% of grid cells, and most (65.7%) respondents reported encountering otters at least once. The majority of interactions (74.9%) were neutral with no impacts on people, 19.4% were negative due to otter-caused damage, and 7.3% were positive. Using a multinomial logistic regression, we found that fishers, especially those who earned a higher percentage of their total income from fishing, were more likely to report negative interactions. Annually, the mean reported monetary loss due to otters (INR 13,145/USD 165) was ~ 10% of the mean income from fishing. Using a multiple linear regression, we found that higher education levels, frequent encounters with otters, and increased distance from protected areas were associated with positive attitudes, while fishing was associated with negative attitudes. Our thematic analysis showed that among those who faced negative impacts due to otters, 20.6% had high levels of tolerance, 29.9% had low levels of tolerance, and the remaining held neutral or ambivalent views. Though we found positive attitudes even amongst those who faced losses, our results highlight the need for targeted mitigation strategies and education programs to to reduce negative impacts and improve coexistence in shared landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As human–wildlife conflicts escalate worldwide, concepts such as tolerance and acceptance of wildlife are becoming increasingly important. Yet, contemporary conservation studies indicate a limited understanding of positive human–wildlife interactions, leading to potentially inaccurate representations of human–animal encounters. Failure to address these limitations contributes to the design and implementation of poor wildlife and landscape management plans and the dismissal of Indigenous ecological knowledge. We examined Indigenous perspectives on human–wildlife coexistence in India by drawing ethnographic evidence from Kattunayakans, a forest‐dwelling Adivasi community living in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala. Through qualitative field study that involved interviews and transect walks inside the forests, we found that Kattunayakans displayed tolerance and acceptance of wild animals characterized as forms of deep coexistence that involves three central ideas: wild animals as rational conversing beings; wild animals as gods, teachers, and equals; and wild animals as relatives with shared origins practicing dharmam. We argue that understanding these adequately will support efforts to bring Kattunayakan perspectives into the management of India's forests and contribute to the resolution of the human–wildlife conflict more broadly. Article Impact Statement: All human–wildlife interactions are not necessarily conflicted, and policies need to go beyond conflict narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Assam state, northeastern India, human-elephant conflict mitigation has included technocentric measures, such as installation of barriers, alternative livelihoods, and afforestation. Such measures treat conflict as a technical problem with linear cause-effect relations and are usually ineffective over the long term because they do not consider how historical conditions have shaped present interactions between humans and elephants. Human-elephant encounters in South Asia, including in Assam, have arisen from colonial and postcolonial land-use policies, ethnic relations, and capital extraction. To disentangle these relations, we conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Udalguri district of Assam among the Adivasi (Tea Tribe) to examine their interactions with wild elephants. Through socioecological ruptures, caused by displacement and deforestation, Adivasi (Tea Tribe) and elephant lives have intersected through space and time. Adivasi (Tea Tribe) life narratives and observations of daily encounters with elephants revealed that their interactions are multifaceted and motivated by multiple factors. Myths and oral testimonies revealed that the community has created conceptualizations of the elephant by closely observing their behavior, especially their movements, diets, vocalizations, and interactions with humans. These conceptualizations are filled with vignettes of shared marginalized lives, caused by the loss of homeland, food poverty, and uncertain ways of living. The empathy, expressed by the Adivasi (Tea Tribe), highlights ways of living with elephants that are affective and reach beyond technocentric interventions. For Adivasi (Tea Tribe) members, cohabitation could thus be achieved by living close to elephants as uneasy neighbors. Concepts of cohabitation, we suggest, could be harnessed to inform conservation policy and bring into focus the critically important-and yet often underutilized-values, encompassed by bottom-up, place-centric understandings of what elephants are and how coexistence may be possible in increasingly anthropogenic landscapes., (© 2024 The Author(s). Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

The socio-economic aspects of the people who directly share space with elephants not only influence the occurrence of human-elephant conflict (HEC) but also shape their sentiments towards coexistence with elephants. The objectives of this paper are to (i) assess the demographic situation and map people's sentiments towards elephants in the HEC hotspot villages of the Keonjhar forest division in India and (ii) rank the most suitable policy instruments and the urgency of mitigation strategies. The results indicated that cultivation and marginal agriculture were positively related with HEC incidences, whereas literacy and employment were negatively associated. Despite being severely affected by human–elephant conflict, many of the respondents (78%) in the HEC hotspot regions still had positive sentiments towards elephants. According to expert opinions, strengthening of laws regarding land use facilitation and interlinking conservation values to socio-cultural aspects need urgent implementation in order to balance infrastructural development and protection of ecosystems by enhancing community participation. Communal crop guarding, chilly-dung and honeybee fencing, accompanied by tracking and maintaining an elephant locational database are suggested as the HEC mitigation methods with highest urgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus responsible for this pandemic, extreme acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) appeared in January/February 2020, having arisen in China in late 2019. Despite the fact that COVID-19 tends to rule the science literature and the newspapers, other communicable disorders, such as tuberculosis (TB), should not be overlooked. The COVID-19 pandemic, which was caused by the novel corona virus extreme acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has wreaked havoc on the world's global public health systems. As per Statistics by ministry of health and Family Welfare, Government of India displayed on mohfw.gov.in, India accounts for 2552940 Active cases of covid 19 and 13867997 discharged till 24 April 2021 with 189544 deaths. The deaths among country is 1.14%.The data repository for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Visual Dashboard operated by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering (JHU CSSE) reveals total Covid 19 cases worldwide 145943305 and recovered cases are 84040856 with 3091553 deaths till 24th April 2021.Due to nationwide lockout and infection prevention measures, the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed major limits on 'face to face' evaluations and travel of citizens. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on tuberculosis patients. According to the Government of India's Central TB Nikshay portal, the number of new TB cases diagnosed has dropped dramatically since the lockout. As of April 27, 2020, the total number of new tuberculosis cases detected in government healthcare centers was 34,342, down from 1,56,000 cases in April of 2019, a 78 percent decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although coexistence with wildlife is a key goal of conservation, little is known about it or how to study it. By coexistence we mean a sustainable though dynamic state in which humans and wildlife coadapt to sharing landscapes, where human interactions with wildlife are effectively governed to ensure wildlife populations persist in socially legitimate ways that ensure tolerable risk levels. Problems that arise from current conflict‐oriented framing of human–wildlife interactions include reinforcing a human–nature dichotomy as fundamentally oppositional, suggesting coexistence requires the absence of conflict, and skewing research and management toward direct negative impacts over indirect impacts and positive aspects of living with wildlife. Human behavior toward wildlife is framed as rational calculus of costs and benefits, sidelining emotional and cultural dimensions of these interactions. Coexistence is less studied due to unfamiliarity with relevant methodologies, including qualitative methods, self‐reflexivity and ethical rigor, and constraints on funding and time. These challenges are illustrated with examples from fieldwork in India and Africa. We recommend a basic approach to case studies aimed at expanding the scope of inquiries into human–wildlife relations beyond studies of rational behavior and quantification of costs and benefits of wildlife to humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Driven by habitat loss and fragmentation, large carnivores are increasingly navigating human-dominated landscapes, where their activity is restricted and their behaviour altered. This movement, however, raises significant concerns and costs for people living nearby. While intricately linked, studies often isolate human and carnivore impacts, hindering effective management efforts. Hence, in this study, we brought these two into a common framework, focusing on an interface area between the critical tiger habitat and the human-dominated multiple-use buffer area of a central Indian protected area., Methods: We employed a fine-scale camera trap survey complemented by GPS-collar movement data to understand spatio-temporal activity patterns and adjustments of tigers in response to anthropogenic pressures. We used an occupancy framework to evaluate space use, Bayesian circular GLMs to model temporal activity, and home range and step length analyses to assess the movement patterns of tigers. Further, we used predation-risk models to understand conflict patterns as a function of tiger presence and other habitat variables., Results: Despite disturbance, a high proportion of the sampled area was occupied by 17 unique tigers (ψ = 0.76; CI [0.73-0.92]). The distance to villages (β ± SE = 0.63 ± 0.21) and the relative abundance of large-bodied wild prey (β ± SE = 0.72 ± 0.37) emerged as key predictors of tiger space use probability, indicating a preference for wild prey by tigers, while human influences constrained their habitat utilisation. Distance to villages was also identified as the most significant predictor of the tigers' temporal activity (μ ± σ = 3.03 ± 0.06 rad) that exhibited higher nocturnality near villages. A total of 11% of tiger home ranges were within village boundaries, accompanied by faster movement in these areas (displacement 40-82% higher). Livestock depredation probability by tigers increased with proximity to villages ( P = 0.002) and highway ( P = 0.003). Although tiger space use probability ( P = 0.056) and wild prey abundance ( P = 0.134) were non-significant at the 0.05 threshold, their presence in the best-fit predation-risk model suggests their contextual relevance for understanding conflict risk. The results highlight the importance of appropriately managing livestock near human infrastructures to effectively mitigate conflict., Conclusions: Shared space of carnivores and humans requires dynamic site-specific actions grounded in evidence-based decision-making. This study emphasises the importance of concurrently addressing the intricate interactions between humans and large carnivores, particularly the latter's behavioural adaptations and role in conflict dynamics. Such an integrated approach is essential to unravel cause-effect relationships and promote effective interface management in human-dominated landscapes., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (© 2024 Mohan et al.)

Jammu and Kashmir was once known as a place of communal harmony and peaceful coexistence. The notion of religious harmony and peace, which emerged mainly due to the strong socioreligious ties among various communities, is often referred to as Kashmiriyat. Although it started off as a sociocultural phenomenon with more emphasis on tolerance among different communities, the idea of Kashmiriyat was exploited by successive political regimes to strengthen their political positioning. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, and the rise of militancy in 1989, the concept of Kashmiriyat changed form. As a system of cohabitation and shared values, Kashmiriyat has been present in Kashmiri society since the inception of different religious traditions in Jammu and Kashmir, however, the term itself evolved in the latter part of the twentieth century. This article analyzes the events and issues that have given Kashmiriyat different meanings. We make use of the existing literature and interactions with current scholars to present our findings. By reexamining the historical context of the term, the article provides a better understanding of its multiple usages. The article then concludes with the note that Kashmiriyat should be maintained as it was once understood—synonymous with peaceful coexistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity is a common issue across the globe, and recent studies have highlighted that deaths due to obesity have also increased rapidly. Obesity and the accompanying deficiency of iron nutrients in the diet has also become a nutritional disorder worldwide. This cross-sectional study was conducted district-wise across India in 2015-16, and in this paper, we aim to determine the clusters of obese and anaemic women in India. Our study finds that southern India and some parts of northern India are the major hotspots of the dual burden of malnutrition in India. We find that women in the age group 40-49 years are the ones who are most prone to being malnourished due to obesity and anaemia. Further, we find that women who are rich and have gained higher education and not having a healthy lifestyle are the ones who have developed obesity and still are anaemic. Findings from this study are indicative of the fact that a large population in the country believes that being obese is a sign of being healthy. It is evident from women who are obese but still anaemic that they are consuming food in adequate quantities, but are sacrificing the quality of the food items. There is a need to investigate further how the information available can be used to boost appropriate measures for bringing down the rates of both obesity and anaemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study explores the reintroduction of tigers to Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, India, highlighting how the (re)negotiation between people and tigers is a struggle rooted in place and territory, with boundaries co-constructed by human and nonhuman actors. While the reintroduction came only three years after the official admission of complete species loss, tigers as a dominant force on the landscape were absent for more than a decade in some places. Accordingly, the people of Sariska see the reintroduced tigers as foreigners without place-knowledge and as disturbers of the interspecies boundaries created by the interactions of Sariska’s original tigers and many generations of local people. This study speaks to conservation sciences and animal geography to contribute to the scientific knowledge of the human dimensions of rewilding, still a nascent area of restoration ecology specifically in the case of apex predators in the global south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a competitive sympatric association, coexisting species may try to reduce interspecific interactions as well as competition for similar resources by several ecological and behavioral practices. We studied resource utilization of three sympatric primate species namely, lion-tailed macaques ( Macaca silenus), bonnet macaques ( M. radiata) and Hanuman langurs ( Semnopithecus entellus) in a tropical rainforest of the central Western Ghats, south India. We studied resource use, tree-height use, foraging height, substrate use when consuming animal prey and interspecific interactions. The results revealed that across the year, there was very limited niche overlap in diet between each species-pair. Each primate species largely depended on different plant species or different plant parts and phenophases from shared plant species. Primate species used different heights for foraging, and the two macaque species searched different substrates when foraging on animal prey. We also recorded season-wise resource abundance for the resources shared by these three primate species. While there was low dietary overlap during the dry season (a period of relatively low resource abundance), there was high dietary overlap between the two macaque species during the wet season (a period of high resource abundance for the shared resources). We observed only a few interspecific interactions. None of these were agonistic, even during the period of high niche overlap. This suggests that the sympatric primate species in this region are characterized by little or no contest competition. Unlike in some other regions of the Western Ghats, the lack of interspecific feeding competition appears to allow these primates, especially the macaques, to remain sympatric year-round. Am. J. Primatol. 73:335-346, 2011. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Large wild herbivores are important ecologically and economically, and maintaining their populations is a crucial management concern. The Ladakh urial Ovis vignei vignei is an endemic and endangered wild sheep inhabiting the arid Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh, where its population is restricted to narrow tracts along two river valleys. The causes of this restricted distribution of the species are not understood. We asked if competitive exclusion by the more abundant wild ungulate, the blue sheep Pseudois nayaur, could explain the limited range of Ladakh urial. To explore this possibility we studied the occurrence patterns of these two species at multi-spatial scales (regional, landscape and habitat). We found that they occurred independently at the regional scale, but co-occurred at the landscape scale, facilitated by divergence in seasonal resource use at the habitat scale. Although the two species segregated along both habitat and diet axes during summer at the habitat scale, there is a high potential for competition during winter, the ‘pinch’ period, when they overlap in their habitat use due to altitudinal migration. Therefore, the presence of blue sheep seems to limit the population growth and range expansion of the Ladakh urial. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses a study focusing on the coexistence of primary tuberculosis (TB) and breast cancer. Topics discussed include the granulomatous inflammation of the breast and the role of breast cancer in it, the patients in the study who showed metastasis at presentation, and the treatment with modified radical mastectomy followed by anti-tubercular treatment.