Measuring Human-Wildlife Conflicts: Comparing Insights From Different Monitoring Approaches

Studies investigating wildlife crop-damage have been widely documented, but methods often vary and results can be difficult to compare across national and international regions. Standardized data-collection protocols involving local communities are encouraged in wildlife management research to address this issue; however, it is not clear how data collected from such systems compare with government monitoring schemes. I established an independent monitoring program for human-elephant conflict (HEC) incidents over a 3-year period (2008-2010) in northern Botswana, following the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) data collection protocol. In addition, the government's monitoring scheme for problem-animal control continued in the area. With these systems running simultaneously, I compared the data collection efficiency of the 2 approaches and explored implications of each on HEC management. The total number of crop-damage incidents recorded differed between the 2 systems. The IUCN approach was temporally more efficient than the government approach, which influenced measurements of areas damaged by elephants. Government records showed a greater mean area of damage per elephant crop-raiding incident compared with community enumerator records. A potential challenge of using the IUCN approach for wide-scale HEC monitoring is the selection, cost, and management of enumerators. Ultimately, both approaches were effective for general monitoring of HEC incidents when the purpose of data collection was clearly defined. Monitoring systems that address broader issues beyond providing a record of damage incidents are likely to have a greater effect in reducing human-wildlife conflicts in the long-term. (c) 2017 The Wildlife Society.