Conflict and Conservation: The Lives of African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus) in Botswana, Africa

Date

2018-08-30

Authors

Fraser-Celin, Valli-Laurente

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Guelph

Abstract

In southern Africa, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) negatively affects both humans and wildlife. African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are the most endangered large carnivore in sub-Saharan Africa. Because of habitat loss, wild dogs move into human settlements and depredate on livestock and game animals; wild dogs are then persecuted by farmers whose livelihoods are threatened. HWC studies are traditionally managerial and focus on quantifying losses and identifying conflict mitigation strategies. However, scholars are now recognizing that HWC is driven by political-economic and socio-cultural structures and processes as well as conflicts between human groups. There is therefore a need for social science research because conservation biology is increasingly regarded as insufficient for understanding HWC. Moreover, there is a need to explore animal subjectivity and agency to understand wild dogs more fully as subjects, rather than objects of study, and their welfare in human-dominated landscapes. This dissertation draws and builds upon different trajectories in the human dimensions of conservation and animal geography scholarships. It argues that we need holistic approaches and examinations to understand and address HWC in its social context. This research is predominately qualitative, consisting of semi-structured interviews with 121 participants from the agricultural, conservation, and wildlife tourism industries, secondary documents, and participant observation. Key findings reveal that: 1) HWC is driven by farmers’ socio-economic statuses; 2) human conflict over wildlife is driven by stakeholder groups’ diverging agendas, values, priorities, and national competing development trends; 3) wild dogs are sentient beings with agency whose welfare is negatively affected in human-dominated landscapes. This study presents technical and structural mitigation strategies, such as responsible livestock herding practices, conservation education, poverty alleviation through community-based tourism, and integrative management planning. Ethical recommendations attend to the lives of wild dogs by engaging a compassionate conservation that positions animals as subjects. This research contributes a largely qualitative and holistic examination of a case study of human-large carnivore conflict and an exploration of animal subjectivity and agency to the HWC, human dimensions of conservation, and animal geography scholarships. Overall, this research demonstrates that humans and animals are entangled in Botswana’s physical, political-economic, and socio-cultural landscapes.

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Keywords

Human-wildlife conflict, Human dimensions of conservation, Conservation, African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus, Botswana, Africa, Human-large carnivore conflict, Animal geography

Citation