Human-wildlife conflict is a shockingly common problem, often with enormous consequences for both individual animals and entire populations.
When human-wildlife conflict comes to mind, you may immediately think of wildlife crime instead - which isn't wrong, since many regions with wildlife crime problems like poaching are also areas where people may frequently deal with human-wildlife conflict, causing the two issues to go hand-in-hand. But human-wildlife conflict is a much broader issue encompassing many ways that human presence and interference can cause problems for us and animals alike. Human-wildlife conflict includes:
- Elephants trampling a farmer's crops, resulting in retaliation
- New real estate developments infringing on ecosystems where predator species live, leading to predators having less territory and less food, which in turn leads to predators attacking domestic animals and livestock
- Freeways dividing the territory of animals like mountain lions, leading to wildlife venturing into neighborhoods or being killed by cars
- Lead bullets used in hunting causing scavengers like condors to die of lead poisoning
These are just a few examples of how humans can negatively impact wildlife, and it's clear to see how many of these scenarios could escalate. Human-wildlife conflict solutions don't just include ways in which we can prevent these issues (for example, through tracking predators, monitoring populations' territories, or building barriers and wildlife crossings monitored by sensors), but also the ways in which we can help people connect with wildlife and care about learning to live alongside them.
If you're interested in solutions that can prevent human-wildlife conflict, join this group and get to know the people who are working to protect and save species around the world!
Header image: Casey Allen on Unsplash
- @evan21
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University of St Andrews
Final Year Biology & Geography Undergraduate at the University of St Andrews
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- @NevilleCLS
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CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites)
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Smart Parks
Founder of Smart Parks - www.smartparks.org / Founder of OpenCollar - https://opencollar.io
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Dzanga-Ndoki national park biodiversity monitoring
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WILDLABS
This account is managed by the WILDLABS Team. Tag us or DM whenever you need help from our community team.
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Early-career movement ecologist currently working with an interdisciplinary team to develop and deploy animal-borne tracking devices with the interest of monitoring and studying the fine-scale behaviors of large carnivores, particularly in the context of human wildlife conflict
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World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
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- @Merin_Joji1297
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Curently doing PhD at the University of Copenhagen on Effects of Shell asymmetry in Indian freshwater turtles using Geomteric morphometrics.
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Technologist, birder, photographer and mountain guide.
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- @vandita_shukla
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PhD candidate studying drone flight planning for enabling tracking and identification of individual characteristics of wildlife; member of the WildDrone, an MSCA Doctoral Network funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research
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Article
Human-wildlife conflict can be difficult to understand without knowing its impact on people and communities. In this case study, authored by community member and Human Wildlife Conflict Tech Challenge coordinator Femke...
19 September 2017
Earlier this year, WILDLABS community member Shashank Srinivasan was involved in an operation to capture the Pilibhit man-eater. In this account, he shares how they successfully managed to tranquilize and capture the...
10 August 2017
Frustrated by the limitations of the tools that were available for managing large camera trap data sets, Heidi Hendry and Chris Mann set out to develop something that met their needs, and thus, Camelot was born. In...
7 July 2017
Funding
The European Space Agency is calling for Kick-Start ideas to leverage space technology for wildlife protection. Three main topics of interest have been identified: 1) Wildlife monitoring, tracking and inventory, 2)...
5 July 2017
In this From the Field interview, we speak to Eric Becker, a conservation technology engineer at the World Wildlife Fund US. He talks about his work in technology design and the key challenges he's experienced...
22 May 2017
In this From the Field interview, we speak to Dr. Raman Sukumar, a world renowned expert on Asian elephant conservation. He shares his thoughts on how technology could be used for mitigating elephant-human conflict, and...
5 April 2017
The Camera Traps group is one the most active in our community, with members keen to discuss approaches to data management and processing, study design, and new software and hardware developments. Indeed, the top entry...
23 March 2017
In our new From the Field series, we're speaking with WILDLABS members to discover how they use technology in their work. Through these interviews we will be showcasing the variety of technologies our members are...
22 March 2017
Are you ready for this year's #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge? In anticipation, we're counting down our ten favourite entries from last year. Do you think you can top these?
1 March 2017
Carpathian shepherd dogs have been reintroduced to the Zarand Landscape Corridor to guard livestock and help mitigate human-wildlife conflict in Romania.
28 February 2017
The Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP) is a training and capacity building programme that targets individuals from developing countries who are early in their conservation career and demonstrate leadership...
21 November 2016
Technology by itself will not save pangolins or elephants, but it can help make major progress.
14 November 2016
October 2024
November 2023
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27 Organisations
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Does anyone remember the 11-year-old Masaai boy who invented 'Lion Lights' as a solution to stop lions from killing his livestock?... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 years 9 months ago | |
Call for Papers: Challenges and solutions to human-wildlife conflict in agricultural landscapes SCB journal... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 years 9 months ago | |
Our new mobile app, "i of the Elephant", is beginning to pay off. Acting on a report from our app, last month agents from the New York State Department of... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 years 10 months ago | |
The IUCN HWC task force has launched a new online document library. In the library, you will find some key literature on many human-... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 5 years 10 months ago | |
I second Nilanga's words -- inspiring and valuable experience and innovative results from this event. It was an amazing opportunity to meet and network with a group of... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 3 months ago | |
HWC Tech Challenge Update WInners to be announced on the 1st November, 2017 First of all, we’d like to thank you all again for your interest and participation in the... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 7 months ago | |
Hello, this device looks really interesting...has anyone tryed? what brand is it? how much does it cost? what's the range of the speakers? what kind of sound does it makes? I... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Hi Mark and Teun, we have been investigating this technology also. It is already being used, but has two problems. First, their reach is often very limited (around 50m) and the... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Dear Somak, Thank you very much for writing and we are sorry information on the challenge did not reach you in time. We are certainly interested in furthering discussions... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Hi Gwen, That's a tough question Gwen! And for any destination in the Arctic counts: it is horribly expensive! I suggest you count on Iqaluit in Nunavut-Canada. Access is... |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Thank you, Gert. My proposed solution takes security into account heavily. Excited to share it with you and the panel as well. Claire |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Additional information on human-polar bear conflicts can be found in this article |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict | 6 years 10 months ago |
Technology Showroom of Artificial Intelligence (AI) aided Elephant Early Warning Systems
6 March 2020 6:09pm
Webinar: IIED Community-Based Approaches to Tackling Poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trade
17 March 2020 12:00am
Testing an Early Warning System to Mitigate Human-Wildlife Conflict on the Bhutan-India Border
11 March 2020 12:00am
3 Ways Your Conservation Technology Could Become a Shiny Pile of Junk, and How to Avoid It
9 March 2020 12:00am
Accepting Applications: ArcGIS Solutions for Protected Area Management
4 March 2020 12:00am
#Tech4Wildlife 2020 Photo Challenge In Review
4 March 2020 12:00am
Call for Nominations: Tusk Conservation Awards
3 March 2020 12:00am
Fence-Based Elephant Early Warning System
25 February 2020 12:00am
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Thermal Elephant Alert System
17 February 2020 12:00am
A New Cloud Platform Unveils the Most Diverse Camera Trap Database in the World
17 December 2019 12:00am
Mitigate Elephant-Human Conflict with ADSMO
[ARCHIVED] Upcoming Event: International Conference on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence
4 November 2019 10:54am
AI powered mobile app to save snakes
4 October 2019 7:10am
9 October 2019 8:45pm
Hi Nilaksha,
Interesting idea. My ideas are usually not that helpful, but I thought I would chime in with the following:
(1) Start small and local, this will help reduce the size of the training data set you will need. So if you can work with a specific set of communities in a particular area that has a known set of snake species, both venemous and non-venemous, you only need images for those species and you won't need as many.
(2) iNaturalist has a pretty decent database (not thousands, but hundreds) of identified images. I have no idea what the restrictions would be around getting access to the database, but this is a Citizen Science organization, so I don't THINK it should be too complicated, especially if your initial scope is limited.
(3) Venemous snakes need "love" too. PLEASE make sure the app does not encourage the locals to kill the venemous snakes unless absolutely necessary. While it is admirable to prevent the accidental killing of a non-venemous snake, you shoudl not be encouraging the purposeful killing of the venemous snakes, but should be encouraging people to stay clear if the snake is in the wild and get professional assistance if the snake somewhere that could be dangerous to humans or other animals.
(4) Look into organizations like the Rainforest Aliance, OpenAI, etc., which are non-profits doing work in or with AI, they might be able to help give you a leg up.
(5) If you start local, you could build into the app the contact information for the professionals to come in and deal with the dangerous snakes.
Hopefully some of this is useful.
Good luck,
Drue
10 October 2019 1:57pm
Thanks Drue for your valuable input.
This is certainly not to encourage killing venomouse snakes. We can actually incorporate the featurs you pointed out to save venomouse snakes as well. Ideally we can let the user know how to deal with a venomouse snake and whome to contact if he/she needs professional assistance.
Thanks again.
Nilaksha
Trade of body parts
23 August 2019 12:16am
Tech In the Wild: Where technology meets conservation
22 August 2019 12:00am
Conservation and Technology Conference
29 July 2019 12:00am
New technology trialled to better monitor human-gorilla conflict in Uganda
23 July 2019 12:00am
Makerspaces to empower communities to develop/refine their own solutions to HEC
27 May 2019 8:27am
28 May 2019 11:37pm
3 June 2019 3:31pm
Hi Aditya,
If you haven't already found it, you should check out our last virtual meetup, it was all about tools and spaces for collaboration and we featured a number of members who have set up and are working on conservation focused makerspaces. You can watch in and connect to the members featured here.
Steph
Caught in the crossfire – Tapirs in tiger territory
31 May 2019 12:00am
Technology lab focused on wildlife protection opens on Ol Pejeta Conservancy
31 May 2019 12:00am
HWC Tech Challenge: Smart Parks field update
25 March 2019 12:00am
Tech for Rewilding Conflicts
22 November 2018 10:54am
13 March 2019 12:34pm
Hi Laurens,
Would be great to connect. Sent you a mesage directly.
Best,
Vance
14 March 2019 2:48am
Interesting conversation. From Tech side there is solution which we are workign on.... Its low cost and tech heavy. Attaching Idea
Toughts please.
14 March 2019 12:21pm
Cool idea Ashwan. Looks similar to the virtual parks idea that Laurens is leading. Have you seen it? Also check out rewilding.io and get an entry in to the contest!
Arribada Initiative Update: Testing our prototype thermal cameras with elephants in India
1 March 2019 12:00am
Nominations for the 2019 Tusk Conservation Awards Now Open
12 February 2019 12:00am
Foxlight to deter pumas, but how about Andean foxes?
14 January 2019 3:24pm
9 February 2019 6:23pm
I agree Nilanga, definitely a good PhD topic. The case you raise with elephants is of great concern I imagine, as elephants standing their ground leads me to think of only the most dire of outcomes. With predators, I think a good deal of any successful implementation of aversive approaches also relies on their being sufficient alternative prey/habitat for predators to avoid livestock areas. The same is true for any non-lethal approaches IMO. If alternatives aren't available, it might be all the more difficult to dissuade predators. Is this similar for elephants in this case (i.e. do they actually have alternative sites/food sources nearby that aren't in conflict)?
11 February 2019 3:04pm
You are right, Rob, in that when aggressive behavior in elephants results from more aversive techniques, the outcomes are not great for either party. It's a tough spot to be in since elephants are also extremely intelligent and can find ways to get past most deterrents. Electric fencing, when managed properly and are functioning appropriately, have been proven to be the most effective in keeping elephants out of crop of human-inhabited areas. But then again, elephants also figure out how to either drop things on the fence and break the current or find other ways past such barriers. There is work being done in various places to restore habitat,fodder plant species, and water and mineral sources that would keep elephants out of human areas, but the whole dynamic is changing overall in the face of massive habitat loss and impediments to movement in the form of corridor blockage or disruption, etc. In addition to doing reactive things like prevention and mitigation measures, it's so important to work on the drivers/root causes of the conflict, such as habitat loss and fragmentation. So it's key to work at both levels for longer term solutions to this issue overall.
11 February 2019 7:54pm
A very good summary all-round Nilanga. Only a wholistic approach can truly resolve conflict.
Mobile phones to reduce HWC
8 February 2019 2:31pm
Citizen scientists to analyze HWC interventions
16 January 2019 3:11pm
23 January 2019 2:15pm
Hi Femke,
At the Biological records Centre we have been tackling these issues for over 50 years! You are right to point out that with citizen scientists you can collect/review a lot of data in a relativly short period of time. Our iRecord system collect 1 million observations in 2018, and just look at how many people are reviewing images over in the zooniverse (check out snapshot serengeti).
You are also right to point our that without strict protocols, and with varying abilities, the use of citizen scientists can introduce biases, which often leads to the impression citizen science data is of lower quality. There are ways to account for this statistically when you are working on data collected in the field, and for those reviewing images online both the zooniverse and iSpot have systems in place, such as reputation and multiple reviews of a single image to reach consensus.
There is a good report on using citizen science here.
Best,
Tom
23 January 2019 5:10pm
I agree with Tom's comments. A project I work with has used Zooniverse to identify animals in camera trap images, We include a field guide that helps reviewers with making trickier distinctions such as deer versus elk (challenging in partial views with IR images). We require each image to be identified by thirty reviewers before scoring it. That allows us to either be quite confident in an identification or to recognize it requires expert review. We have seen no examples of intentional misidentifications. The biggest problem is coming up with enough images to meet demand--some people will work for hours!
28 January 2019 10:12am
Thanks both for your comments, very interesting indeed! Also great to hear that so many people are eager to get involved in this kind of research and will participate with great enthusiasm.
Bets regards,
Femke
The Ecosulis Rewilding Tech Challenge
14 January 2019 12:00am
HWC Tech Challenge Update: Testing our prototype thermal cameras in the Arctic
9 January 2019 12:00am
31 March 2023 1:24pm
Wild pigs crop damage assessment and movement using GIS and drones
28 December 2018 5:15am
3 January 2019 9:57am
Dear Sdorji,
Thanks for sharing! Are you specifically looking for monitoring methods? In that case, you could probably also find relevant information outside of the HWC group, perhaps in groups focussing on camera trapping, the use of drones etc on the other WILDLABS pages. Do you know about the Bhutanese national HWC strategy? Does this also focus on wild boars? Or is your initiative not connected to that?
Best regards,
Femke
5 January 2019 8:24am
Dear Femke,
I am actually looking for studying the crop damages using drones and also tracking the movements, may be using GPS collars. But I do not actually know about these tools and have not used. So just thought if I can get methods and procedures. It is great that you already know about our national strategy. Yes, I am the core member of Bhutanese national HWC strategy and we have recently completed drafting. I have worked on wild pigs chapter and one strategy there is crop damage assessments and movements study. We are also proposing crop insurance but without a concrete data, there is nothing we can do about crop insurance. So I am thinking to collect basic information such as crop damages and movements of wild pigs.
19 March 2020 9:15am
Hi @Tim+Vedanayagam
Thank you for posting this. I'd be happy to contribute to the thermal sensing work under way. Can you confirm - have you built a thermal AI model and trained / labelled data for a particular camera?
We have been training a model for low cost (Lepton 3.5) thermal cameras via a challenge with WWF / Wildlabs and have 30,000 labelled images as our training dataset of Asian elephants. We're focusing on Deeplabel and YOLO with a plan to port to Tensorflow and it will be open source, so applicable for others to use and adopt in their early warning systems that use thermal.
More info here - https://www.zsl.org/blogs/conservation/zsl-whipsnade-zoo-becomes-a-space-for-high-tech-wild-elephant-conservation
Kind regards,
Alasdair