Abstract:
Negative interactions between humans and wildlife (i.e. those presenting risks to human security or private property)
can trigger retaliation and potential human-wildlife conflict (HWC). The nature and strength of these human
responses may depend on previous interactions with wildlife and can be shaped by landscape conditions. However,
the ways in which previous experiences and landscape conditions interact to shape peoples’ attitudes towards
wildlife are not well-understood. We conducted our study in Tsavo Conservation Area, Kenya, which experiences
some of the highest rates of HWC documented in East Africa. We explored how previous experiences with wildlife
and landscape conditions interact to inform the attitudes of people towards wildlife. We conducted semi-structured
surveys among 331 households and fit an ordinal mixed-effects regression model to predict human attitudes to
wildlife as a function of landscape conditions and previous interactions. Respondents indicated that baboons,
elephants, and lions posed the greatest risks to human security and private property. Households experiencing risks
from wildlife wanted wildlife populations to decrease, whereas households depending on grazing lands outside
the study area wished to see wildlife increase. Our study demonstrates that human-wildlife interactions have
important social and spatial contexts, and are not uniform across households in the same area owing to location
of private property. Correspondingly, for interventions
to be effective, we recommend considerations of local
contexts and landscape conditions of communities.
