Topic > Wildlife and Coexistence: The Conflict Between Wild Animals and Humans

Coexistence can be defined as the state in which two or more parties exist or are together in the same environment at the same time. When coexistence combines with interaction, conflicts inevitably arise due to incompatible directions and interventions by the other parties. This generation's biggest problem, which continues to grow and is often discussed, is definitely human-wildlife conflict. This problem is often followed by a question: can humans and wildlife coexist? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The main reason contributing to the worsening of the problem is the boom in the human population in recent decades. Human development activities that are significant to support human needs such as exploitation of land for urbanization, agriculture, industries, etc. are known as the main reason for the conflict. The line drawn between humans and wildlife has blurred where this has contributed to the increasing interaction between them. Some extent of conflict contributes to property damage such as crop raiding and threatens the safety of both humans and wildlife as human wildlife increases. Increased human activities have also directly and indirectly caused climate change, wildlife habitat devastation, and wildlife population fragmentation, which are harmful to wildlife. As the species with the highest intelligence, we have realized the problem and understand the impacts that will ultimately fall on humans and mother earth. Each country is working hard to try to protect their natural reserves with different attempts and efforts, however, the efforts have not always given the desired results. Many measures have been introduced to address the conflicts mentioned above. Measures are applied based on the level of harm and conflict resulting from the physical barrier, education and awareness to population control. Dickman (2010) summarized that there are three factors that influence decision making, namely risk perception, disproportionate response and social influences. Individuals, families, and society's perception of risk is strongly influenced by history, locally adapted cultural values, and cultures such as fear of wildlife, consumption of crops, and damage caused by wildlife. However, perceptions or even data collected are often skewed and do not represent the real situation. Furthermore, it is usually not just a single factor that is responsible for conflicts, studies on collateral factors could provide a broader picture and bring out the crux of the problem. Having mismatched perceptions will lead to inappropriate actions that will make the current situation worse. Because the conflict is complex, attempting to reduce harm to wildlife would not ensure long-term impact in resolving the problem. Collaboration with different stakeholders, such as scientists and communities, is necessary to broaden the approach in order to have a holistic view of the conflict from the perspective of culture, economy, biodiversity, etc. In this report, two case studies on tigers and primates or Macaques will be discussed next. On the Indonesian island of Sumatra, off the coast of the Malay Peninsula, there is the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) which is the rarest and smallest subspecies of all living tigers. It is now the only surviving species in Sumatra, of the three subspecies of Indonesian tigers, namely the Bali tiger and the Javan tiger,which had been declared extinct. The Sumatran tiger is considered critically endangered due to human hunting and rapid deforestation. Since 1998, the flagship species has declined by about 50% and now occupies 7% of its historic range. In some places, the Sumatran tiger coexists with humans, especially in areas around rivers or forests that connect them to the tiger's habitat. In these areas the risk of encountering tigers is greater. A higher chance of meeting implies a higher level of conflict which could be lethal in some cases for both parties. Conversation science comes into the picture when man becomes one of the dependencies in ecosystem management. However, the lack of knowledge on the link between human decisions or interaction with ecosystem and species causes has been an obstacle in defining the precise resource management policy and also the impacts on human nature. When dealing with human-tiger conflict, several factors are taken into consideration, such as geographical profile, degree of tolerance and the like. Predator conservation is critically affected by the degree of human tolerance. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence humans' degree of tolerance towards wildlife, in this case the Sumatran tiger. A socio-ecological approach study integrating encounter risk was conducted with data from Kerinchi Seblat, a tiger core area in Sumatra. Data from local authority and media reports were collected and mapped with encounter risk by Struebig et al. They were then grouped into 4 types of categories in line with the Indonesian government's tiger problem management strategy, namely sightings, attacks on livestock, attacks on people and removal of tigers. It has been revealed that 35% of encounter cases escalated into another encounter leading to the killing of tigers. Furthermore, there has been an increase in wildlife trade regionally, as demand for tiger skin has supported the infiltration of poachers, which in turn has caused the killing of tigers. A questionnaire was completed by 2,386 people to address factors influencing human behavior and attitudes toward wildlife by St. John et al. He studied human tolerance towards wildlife that could be affected by human-wildlife conflict. Factors such as beliefs and norms play the role of human behavior and response to conflicts. The tiger occasionally attacks livestock and people, this is associated with the human intention to hunt and how humans perceive the tiger when it comes to conflict. Attitude toward killing or preserving was found to be positively related to intention, indicating that intention to kill increased with perceived goodness. Furthermore, descriptive norms perceiving the tiger as dangerous constituted a strong encouragement to the human intention to kill. Primates have been the third most diverse order of mammals in the taxonomic classification that includes lemurs, apes, apes, humans, and so on. The close relationship between humans and other primates is genetically proven. Among all primates, the macaque is one of the species that immerses itself the most in the human habitat. They can be found in rural or urban areas. Due to the common encounter with humans, the conflict between humans and macaques is greater than with other mammals. On the other hand, the cooperative relationship exists in parallel with the conflict as macaques interact with humans in various ways such as working in crops, pets, religious activities. symbol and so on. Conflict yesoccurs in cases where both parties have different intent and purpose behind the actions, competition over resources and constitute an obstacle in achieving a goal. According to AIMI, the first recorded macaque dates back nearly 430,000 years and the oldest human subfossil dates back 35,000 years. This indicates that humans and macaques have coexisted together for 35,000 years. Macaques have been the subject of human hunting and food resources since the Neolithic era. Along with changes in culture and spiritual beliefs, people's perception of the macaque in Japan has evolved towards the macaque becoming a symbolic element in Japanese culture. When Japan was recovering from World War II, regulations on macaque hunting were enforced and the macaque was placed under a state of legal protection. However, serious damage was caused to macaque crops in the 1970s, when Japan was undergoing industrial evolution and development that exploited natural habits. Following this event, the killing of macaque pests had increased dramatically, exceeding 10,000 animals per year in 1988. Crop raids by macaques were threatening the livelihoods of local rural communities in Indonesia, also mentioned by Priston , Wyper and Lee. Agriculture has emerged as a major activity in Sulawesi, Indonesia, which involves the conversion of land for agriculture. Studies were conducted on two of the species, the tonkean macaque M. tonkeana in Central Sulawesi and the Buton macaque M. brunnescens on Buton Island, to investigate the macaque's role in raiding local crops and how the local perspective towards the macaque had changed following this raid. With increased forest segmentation and industrial development, human-macaque conflict has increased correspondingly. The macaque's intense love-hate relationship with humans can be seen in peninsula India, where the macaque has inherited a tendency to gravitate toward human habitations. Due to increased intolerance towards macaques in urban areas and the conversion of land for agriculture, the macaque population has declined over time. On the other hand, the degree of aggressiveness of macaques when interacting with tourists in some tourist areas has seen an increase with underlying factors such as substitute feeding. This resulted in greater social tension. Data collected in a study of proximate factors influencing macaques' deference to humans and vice versa determine the extent to which human behaviors induce macaques' aggression. Frequencies and instances of human-macaque interaction were recorded and analyzed using an event sampling design at 4 different locations in Dehradun, India, including a Buddhist temple, a Hindu temple, along a road side, and on campus. of the Wildlife Institute of India. Simply put, crop raids and tourist sites are two of the few cases of human-macaque encounter patterns. To resolve the damage caused by macaque raids on crops, several measures have been adopted, such as vigilant surveillance and hunting of intruding monkeys. However, they were ineffective in terms of cost and time. No single method so far is able to cope with the conditions that cause conflict, however it is necessary to adopt multiple management approaches for each of the cases depending on the contexts. As agriculture and habitat exploitation continue to expand, human-macaque conflict is likely to worsen in the future. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay Conservative and preventive the measurements must be.