Humans and wildlife have lived in harmony for centuries. With the expanding human population, wildlife areas are shrinking and that means there are smaller hunting grounds for carnivores and the herbivores also move into nearby community land with carnivores following them. Because of pressure to find food the predators sometimes stray into community land where they are tempted to predate on livestock.
On the other hand, due to climate change and drought the communities may take their livestock into the parks to graze risking their lives. This results in the livestock being easy prey for the predators.
In the name of development, roads and railways are being built through conservation areas and parks disturbing the wildlife, sometimes causing them to stray out of the parks. There are natural areas which animals use to migrate between national parks using land which communities live on, where people are used to wildlife passing through, as they have for centuries. With today’s pressure this has led to increased human wildlife conflict. Some examples of human wildlife conflict.
The famous Athi Pride of lions from The Nairobi National Park wandered into the dispersal area of Kitengela which borders the Park, and killed Maasai livestock. Frustrated, the community saw that as a threat and killed the lions. There is only one of Athi’s cubs who wasn’t there at the time, Mpakasi, a beautiful male lion. If you would like to meet him, please see my You Tube video
In the Maasai Mara nearby herdsman were bringing in their cattle to graze in the reserve when 3 cows were killed. The angry Maasai put the body of a poisoned dead cow in the territory of the Marsh pride, resulting in almost all of the pride members poisoned. It was a tragedy.
Some solutions to human wildlife conflict include:
While development like roads and railways are very useful and helpful for humans we need to think about the environment and animals and how it can affect them. We must protect the wildlife areas without the infrastructure causing harm and ensure it does not damage their environment and ecosystem. We can also build infrastructure for animals, like bridges over busy roads.
Develop conservancies on community land where communities benefit from protecting wildlife and earning from from tourism. The community will get some of the proceeds in exchange for opening their land to wildlife, including jobs and other benefits like schools and medical facilities. Check out my YouTube video about Naretunoi Conservancy on the southern border of Nairobi National Park.
Building wildlife corridors and preserving wildlife dispersal areas. To help animals move from one conservancy or park to another through their natural migratory routes, meaning they have safe access without risking human lives while passing through homes, villages, gardens and more. Research such as use of GPS tracking collars help understand where lions and other animals have their territories especially outside their protected areas.
Supporting communities to continue living alongside wildlife in harmony. Includes community education programmes for children to understand the importance of the value of wildlife and the environment. Many techniques have been used to prevent predation, such as lion lights to deter lions from attacking cows in the bomas (enclosures) which has been very successful, which are installed at Naretunoi Conservancy.
