PhD defence

Living with the Large Carnivores: The interaction between humans, tigers and leopards in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Date

Tuesday 9 April 2019

Time

15:00 - 15:45

Location

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Short summary

The dissertation of B.R. Lamichhane investigates how human communities and two large carnivores, tigers and leopards, are co-existing within the human-dominated landscape. The study was carried out in Chitwan National Park in Nepal, looking at both social and biological aspects of the human-large carnivore interactions. The study documented a high density of tigers and leopards occurring in prey-rich areas that contain a mosaic of habitats within the human-dominated landscape. Coexistence of the large carnivores was facilitated by the temporal and habitat segregation. The study also documented that a large portion of the large carnivore population avoids conflicts with the human communities, and a small group of individuals cause disproportionately higher number of conflict incidents.

Human communities were found supportive towards wildlife conservation despite frequent safety threats and economic losses from wildlife. Large investments of the buffer zone programs have contributed in reducing the wildlife impacts on humans. The local communities recommended a buffer zone program to focus their activities in reducing human-wildlife impacts. Carnivores were primarily eating wild-prey and attacks on humans were mostly accidental. The study provided a clue for human-carnivore coexistence by considering the biological needs of the carnivores and enhancing the social tolerance of carnivores. The social tolerance towards wildlife can be enhanced by involving local communities in conflict management, practicing targeted interventions to reduce the wildlife damages, promoting alternative income sources less dependent on forests, and quickly compensating the loss from wildlife.

Supervisor

• Prof. G.A. Persoon

Attend

PhD defences are free; you do not have to register.

PhD dissertations

PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally after the defence through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

Press contact

Maarten Muns, Scientific Communications Adviser, Leiden University
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