Human-Wildlife Conflicts in India
I really loved the conversation with Rajeev in episode 76, and I hope you all did too. It really opened my eyes as to how dire human-wildlife conflict is in different parts of the world. 400-500 people killed a year by elephants, leopards and tigers each?!
Mathen “Rajeev” Mathews (center) with a team of researchers measuring tiger scat. Courtesy of Mathen Mathews.
The picture above is of Rajeev and a team of people measuring some tiger scat. He also sent me a picture of an elephant trampling victim and a victim of a sloth bear attack...I can never express to you all in words how graphic and awful the pictures of the victims are. I could barely identify the sloth bear attack victim as a human being, and the trampling victim was only a torso and head. I won't ever post content like that for you to see, but just know that it is more awful than you can even imagine.
Rajeev told us so many interesting things, like how the wildlife populations (generally for some species) in India are increasing despite continued loss of habitat, and conflicts are increasing. He also noted that many conflicts with tigers and leopards are young individuals, and attacks may be cases of mistaken identity of their normal prey items (remember: many leopard victims are small children), and they are trying to establish new territories that are often already taken by other adults, and their habitat is extremely fragmented. There is also a ripple effect of tigers, originally in core habitats within national parks, that are now dispersing to areas occupied by leopards, so the leopards are being displaced by the tigers into more urban areas, and less suitable habitat.
Mathen “Rajeev” Mathews (front) observing tiger claw marks on a tree. Courtesy of Mathen Mathews.
Rajeev also spoke about tigers and leopards bedding down in sugarcane plantations, where they and their cubs are eating cattle and losing fear of humans. And according to the laws there and the rules within CITES, chasing a leopard or tiger away is considered "hunting", and is illegal. This is where people like Rajeev who are trying to help in these conflicts are experiencing problems, because he said it's like trying to solve the problems "with your hands and legs tied behind your back." There's just not much they can do to help, so some people are resorting to poisoning tigers and leopards, which as we all know is a terrible way to die and poison left out for one animal can certainly be eaten by other animals not intended for poisoning. He said there should be a more reasonable approach to mitigating these conflicts rather than what's known as fortress conservation; Fortress conservation is a form of conservation in which protected areas are created and humans are barred from existing within (this can be problematic, as you can imagine, when indigenous peoples are displaced in favor of conserving wildlife). The way that the United States made National Parks is an example of fortress conservation - for example, did you know that Yosemite National Park was named Yosemite because white colonizers originally thought that was what the native people, the Ahwahnechee, a sub-group of the Miwok tribe, were called, but in reality the Ahwahnechee people were calling the colonizers Yosemite, which meant "band of killers". When Yosemite was declared an area for environmental protection in 1865, the Miwok people were forcibly displaced from the park.
But back to India: Although the government has encouraged people to call the forest department when they see a leopard or tiger, tigers and leopards have learned what the vehicles sound like and vanish before the forest department can do anything. Rajeev also made a powerful point that it seems there that animal lives are more important than human lives, because the government is hesitant to step in when individual animals are killing people habitually. To be fair though, trapping or tranquilizing is difficult, especially given that leopards and tigers are even sensitive to the hum of camera traps. Despite these conflicts and despite the seeming unwillingness of the government to intervene on behalf of its citizens in many of these conflicts, Rajeev has so much love for the wildlife around him, especially leopards. But he says he's a rarity - many of the people living around tigers and leopards in central India especially hate them, likely due to the fact that they cannot defend themselves or protect their livelihoods from them.
I was relieved to hear there were snake rescuers that will take venomous snakes out of areas they are not wanted and return them to a more natural setting. According to Save the Snakes (of which we interviewed a member in episode 11!), 46,000 people are killed annually in India alone from snake bites, which accounts for almost half of worldwide snake bite deaths.
So can deaths by leopards or tigers be avoided? Rajeev said if you're in an area with a man-eater "don't step out when the shadows start to fall". There is no one to call (as mentioned above, the animals can easily learn what forest department vehicles sound like), so stay inside. In rural areas he said the bathrooms are built away from the house so people going to the bathroom at night make them prime targets for leopards or tigers, so going out in groups or having a group of people nearby to call on is the best bet, but then you have to be worried about somebody being picked off from behind. I can't imagine what it's like to live like that, and I commend the brave people, like Rajeev, that respond in these situations in an attempt to help.
Hopefully we will get a chance to talk to Rajeev again soon, because there are so many more wildlife conflicts in India we could've touched on.
