Predation Management

Various tools and strategies are used to reduce human-animal conflict, such as behaviour modification, repellents, exclusion, habitat modification, relocation, lethal control etc. Wildlife damage management is truly a diverse and complex field.

Every citizen of the country is an owner of the wildlife that lives here. All species of wildlife belong to the public. The people as a whole are responsible for managing wildlife problems.

Wild animals are an important part of our environment. For thousands of years, people relied on wild animals for food and clothing. Wildlife adds to the beauty of the outdoors. Wildlife adds excitement and fun to such activities as hiking, camping and photography. As a renewable natural resource, wildlife provides hunting and fishing opportunities. Some hunters use the animals they hunt for food and clothing. Wild animals can help control animals and insects that we consider pests. Pests can cause damage to our crops and homes.

Sometimes wildlife can carry diseases that can make people sick. Skunks can carry the rabies virus which can be fatal (cause death) to your pets. Some animals are predators. This means they eat other animals. Predators can cause problems for farmers when they eat livestock. It is not a problem when they eat other wild animals, such as rabbits and mice.

There are individuals and government agencies who work to solve wildlife problems. These agencies may be part of local, provincial or national governments. These agencies have people who work solving wildlife problems. These agencies provide information and sometimes equipment to solve wildlife conflicts.

Prevention is an imperfect discipline. Animals adapt to our methods and materials and workmanship break and decays over time. Monitoring and maintenance are necessary in any prevention program. Acting quickly before a problem gets out of hand will save you a lot of trouble down the road.

Environmental protection requires that farmers and communities avoid destroying predators where possible and rather find alternative solutions to harming, hunting and poisoning these predators.

Where cattle farms are adjacent to wild life sanctuaries and game farms, the farms must be sufficiently fenced off from one another, making use of e.g. electronic fences, game fences, razor wire, etc. It is important that the cattle farmer be alert to the dangers that these fences hold for his cattle and prevent them from electrical shock, cuts and strangulation near fences by keeping the heard away from such fences.

For farmers in areas with predators such as Lion, leopard, hyena and cheetah, one of the biggest problems is the loss of livestock to the predators. There are however a number of measures that can be taken by farmers to reduce the scale of the problem.

The first step is to identify the predators present on the farm or in the local area.

There is little point in building expensive protection against lions for instance if there are no lions around. Spoor is a good way to identify what animals are in an area, as predators are often hard to spot.

The second step is to implement good livestock management techniques to reduce the risks from predators.

There are a number of techniques that can be used.