Research Interests
As conservationists, we share the challenge of developing scientific theory into practical tools that stakeholders can implement to enable a sustainable lifestyle. Especially with regard to large carnivores, co-existence is a fragile state, often imbalanced by opposing pressures for human development or species protection. I am fascinated by the significant roles that keystone predators play within ecosystems, and my research approaches human-wildlife conflict through this perspective. I am currently carrying out my doctoral research in Kanha Tiger Reserve, central India, and the larger landscape of Madhya Pradesh state that explores how tiger and leopard predation shapes the ecology of fear and can be quantified to sustain these cats' survival while benefiting the local people that share their forests.
Predation Risk Mapping of Tiger and Leopard Depredation on Livestock
Carnivore attacks on humans and livestock are by far the most gruesome and provocative form of human-wildlife conflict. In response to attacks, people often poison animals and destroy habitat, actions that threaten the survival of rare carnivores and may erode lines of dependency between predators and wild prey, causing tigers and leopards to increase depredation on livestock. The risk of an attack varies geographically and depends on a variety of factors, including habitat, topography, wild prey availability and distribution of villages and livestock. It is currently unclear which features conflate the risk of attack, creating challenges for landscape-scale conservation planning that reconciles human land use and felid conservation.
This research addresses two questions: What determines where tigers and leopards attack prey and how can people minimize the risk of an attack on their livestock? I will investigate how landscape features and livestock grazing affect tiger and leopard predation on natural prey species and domestic livestock in Kanha Tiger Reserve. The project will develop “predation risk maps” that show where wild and domestic ungulates are more likely to be attacked as a novel tool for conservation and land-use planning to mitigate attacks and focus protection efforts.
Predation risk maps depict the probability of a carnivore attack over a landscape. Risk maps were initially developed to explore spatial drivers of wolf-elk interactions in Yellowstone National Park (Hebblewhite et al. 2005, Kauffman et al. 2007) and have only recently been applied to a human-wildlife conflict context (Treves et al. 2011). I plan to explore whether these maps can offer villagers and Forest Department officials in India a tangible tool for avoiding attack hot spots and making decisions about where to graze livestock and focus species conservation efforts. Maps could especially provide a novel service to tiger reserve managers by helping them target protection efforts, such as forest guard petrol presence, in areas where tigers and leopard hunt as well as assist them in managing livestock grazing. Predation risk maps have the potential to move beyond current livestock compensation schemes as a strategy for mitigating human-carnivore conflict by reducing economic loss from carnivores.
This research addresses two questions: What determines where tigers and leopards attack prey and how can people minimize the risk of an attack on their livestock? I will investigate how landscape features and livestock grazing affect tiger and leopard predation on natural prey species and domestic livestock in Kanha Tiger Reserve. The project will develop “predation risk maps” that show where wild and domestic ungulates are more likely to be attacked as a novel tool for conservation and land-use planning to mitigate attacks and focus protection efforts.
Predation risk maps depict the probability of a carnivore attack over a landscape. Risk maps were initially developed to explore spatial drivers of wolf-elk interactions in Yellowstone National Park (Hebblewhite et al. 2005, Kauffman et al. 2007) and have only recently been applied to a human-wildlife conflict context (Treves et al. 2011). I plan to explore whether these maps can offer villagers and Forest Department officials in India a tangible tool for avoiding attack hot spots and making decisions about where to graze livestock and focus species conservation efforts. Maps could especially provide a novel service to tiger reserve managers by helping them target protection efforts, such as forest guard petrol presence, in areas where tigers and leopard hunt as well as assist them in managing livestock grazing. Predation risk maps have the potential to move beyond current livestock compensation schemes as a strategy for mitigating human-carnivore conflict by reducing economic loss from carnivores.
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Funding
Thank you to the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, Lewis & Clark, John Ball Zoo Society and the Yale Tropical Resources Institute for funding my 2011-2012 fieldwork for this project.
Chital Use of Human Predation Shields
In displacing top carnivores, people can generate ‘human predation shields’ where reduced predation risk lowers stress and mortality and improves survivorship of prey. In India, where tigers, leopards and dhole avoid human-inhabited areas and people rarely hunt ungulates, chital (spotted deer) commonly graze in meadows adjacent to villages, potentially as safe grazing grounds from predators. Chital are also primary culprits of crop raiding and can destroy up to 40% of a farmer's annual income. If chital benefit significantly from grazing near villages where predation is lower, the location of refuge meadows may be an important factor in whether chital also crop raid nearby agricultural fields.
For my dissertation research, I will also investigate how human predation shields and crop raiding affect chital fawn survivorship in Kanha Tiger Reserve. Using non-invasive photography and spot-recognition software to identifying individuals, I plan to track fawn mortality to compare how the presence of people and crops reduce vulnerability to tiger, leopard and dhole predators in the first few months of life. This project broadly aims to identify how landscape structure, such as the location of predation refuge meadows with respect to agricultural fields, may facilitate – or even encourage – crop raiding and human-wildlife conflict.
For my dissertation research, I will also investigate how human predation shields and crop raiding affect chital fawn survivorship in Kanha Tiger Reserve. Using non-invasive photography and spot-recognition software to identifying individuals, I plan to track fawn mortality to compare how the presence of people and crops reduce vulnerability to tiger, leopard and dhole predators in the first few months of life. This project broadly aims to identify how landscape structure, such as the location of predation refuge meadows with respect to agricultural fields, may facilitate – or even encourage – crop raiding and human-wildlife conflict.
My research will examine whether grazing near villages (fewer predators) and on cultivated crops (greater nutrition) boosts fawn survivorship.
Results may provide insight into how chital prioritize resources across the landscape to better access food and avoid predators.
