Preventing Conflicts

As written in our first post, any interaction between humans and wildlife that results in negative impacts can be described as a human-wildlife conflict. This accounts for people, animals, or the environment. Conflicts are occurring more and more as the human population increases, and available land decreases. There is a scale of how dangerous a conflict can be, such as crop destruction to something as simple as trash rummaging. Many people have researched and created solutions that are preventing these conflicts, such as corridors, barriers, and tracking.

Photo Credit: kstr.wordpress.com

      Corridors are a great way of reducing conflicts with wildlife. Corridors are like bridges or tunnels that provide a safe pathway for animals to travel between two habitats; like forests. This diminishes the chance of vehicle collisions with deer, bears, moose, and even monkeys. In many places like Costa Rica, corridors were created simply by making a treetop bridge out of rope. This allowed monkeys to cross over busy roads in order to get from one forest to another without the risk of getting hit by a vehicle.

Some nuisance species make their way into our homes and backyards. This can lead to garbage rummaging, home destruction, and garden invasions. There are certain precautions that can be taken to prevent these species from causing harm to you, your home, or themselves. Simply taking your trash out the morning of trash collection day rather than the night before can deter wildlife, such as raccoons, skunks, and bears from the area. Keeping squirrels, or other rodents from coming into your home could be done by checking your home for potential access points and covering them up, and setting harmless traps inside your home to catch the critter and release them outside a safe distance from your home. For people with gardens, use fences and or net barriers to protect it from wildlife.

Crop destruction via wildlife is a huge issue in the world. It causes many angered farmers to take matters into their own hands and retaliate. Retaliation usually results in seeking and harming the animal that damaged the farmers crops. These crops are not just plants they’re growing as a hobby; they are the farmers main source of income that pays for food and goods they need to live. Research on preventative methods have shown that electric fences, noise makers and strobe lights help scare off nocturnal wildlife. Although this could be costly, it is a better way to deter wildlife rather than taking lethal control measures.

      Elephants are one of the biggest crop destroyers on farms in Africa. Elephants can be dangerous and not only lead to crop destruction, but also human or elephant deaths. While the preventative measures listed above could be effective on these animals, most farmers cannot afford to keep them up and running. Natural barriers such as chili pepper fields are used around the perimeter of fields to keep elephants at a safe distance from their crops. A new method that has been used is an SMS chip in an elephant tracking collar. When an elephant passes a certain marker point, it sends a text message to nearby residents warning them that an elephant is close by. When this initially started, human deaths diminished to about 50%, whereas before the human deaths were at 75%. In recent years, areas using this technique have had no reports of human deaths!

     There is a wide variety of human-wildlife conflicts in the world. It is impossible to know what preventative methods will work for each conflict, but patience and compliance are the first steps to figuring out the best strategies. Contacting specialists such as Wildlife Fish and Game Departments, Animal Control, or maybe a local Humane Society depending on the animal can help solve problems with wildlife.