Large mammalian carnivores represent a particular challenge for wildlife management. They can generate significant support for conservation and their loss may cause cascading effects through an ecosystem. However, carnivore populations require large, interconnected habitats with abundant prey, and frequently create conflict with remote or expanding human communities. Coexisting with carnivores therefore requires a landscape-level perspective alongside effective approaches for resolving conflicts and mitigating risks to people and prey. Navigating inevitable trade-offs necessitates reliable information on carnivore ecology in degraded and managed landscapes, as well as on human behaviours and tolerance of carnivores.
Our current carnivore coexistence projects include:
- Understanding conflict and mitigation effectiveness for farmers and large carnivores on southern Vancouver Island.
- Assessing coexistence between leopards and dairy farmers in Sri Lanka.
- Density and distribution of brown (grizzly) bears within human-impacted landscapes in western Canada and the Caucasus region.
- Carnivore connectivity and persistence in fragmented forests of northern Peru and southern Ecuador. **Looking for camera-trap carnivore records – submit here**
- Andean bear conservation in Peru.
- The effectiveness of protected areas for conserving lions, leopards, and other carnivores in West Africa.