Inadequate livestock husbandry practices threaten the maintenance of global biodiversity and provoke conflicts between people and wildlife, and large carnivorous mammals are among the most affected. The jaguar Panthera onca is one of the most threatened species in the Americas, being targeted by livestock producers who suffer economic losses as a result of predation. The way in which rural producers in countries such as Mexico conduct husbandry practices may influence levels of predation by jaguars. Our objective was to understand how such practices are conducted in the Selva Lacandona in south-eastern Mexico, to identify their influence on the vulnerability of livestock to predation by jaguars. We characterized local husbandry practices through participant observation, interviews and surveys. Our results show that the most important practices that make livestock vulnerable to predation include the location of grazing lands close to forested areas and water sources, the absence of practices for the proper disposal of carcasses, and poor control of calving and care of calves. Our recommendations include monitoring of livestock movements and synchronization of calving. Economic investment and behavioural change can be accomplished through capacity building and providing people with the means to monitor and manage their livestock. Small actions can reduce livestock losses and improve the economic circumstances of rural people, and thus increase their tolerance and respect towards jaguars.

Domestic livestock were a crucial part of Mediterranean communities throughout later prehistory. In the first millennium BC, livestock mangement changed, and was changed by, the rise of cities in Italy. Italian prehistory has a rich zooarchaeological tradition, but investigation of the Iron Age has been regionally divided and synthetic works on the Po valley comparatively few. This article presents a pan-regional review of late prehistoric and protohistoric livestock exploitation that considers Northern and Central Italy together for the first time. Zooarchaeological comparison reveals an increase in the use of sheep/goat for secondary products, while cattle and caprines were subject to size changes that distinguish their management from that of pigs. A marked increase in pig husbandry is visible in both regions, but this shift took place earlier and more emphatically in Northern Etruscan centres than in Central Italy. After defining the main changes in animal management during the period under review, this article looks beyond population density to explore the wider environmental, economic, and cultural context of pork consumption and its relation to the development of urbanism in Etruria padana.

Human-wildlife conflict is detrimental to the conservation of threatened carnivores and the livelihoods of rural communities. This paper compares perceived levels of human-carnivore conflict experienced on five Namibian communal conservancies and four resettled farming areas. Factors explored include how reported depredation was affected by livestock husbandry practices, the perceived annual cost of depredation and the reported problem predator species. Of the 147 respondents interviewed, perceived depredation was greater than in previous studies; high perceived depredation was associated with greater rates of predator removal, increased ranking of predators as problems and increased predator sighting frequency. Small stock species were the most commonly depredated livestock. The most frequently perceived predators were: jackals on goats and sheep, wild cats on chickens, leopards on horses and spotted hyenas on cattle. The financial cost of this predation was US$508898, mostly attributable to cattle depredation, and agricultural training schemes recommending good livestock management may help reduce this cost. A move from small to large stock farming could be promoted in areas with an abundance of small- to medium-sized carnivores and a lack of large carnivores. Further incentives, such as meat provision and income from consumptive and non-consumptive tourism could ensure benefits outweigh costs of wildlife coexistence.

We conducted a questionnaire survey among 77 cattle posts and farms to investigate human-carnivore conflicts in northern Botswana, with a particular focus on Endangered African wild dog Lycaon pictus, persecuted throughout their shrinking range in sub-Saharan Africa for allegedly predating livestock. Predator attacks on livestock (n = 938 conflict reports) represent an economic concern for livestock owners, particularly alleged predation by black-backed jackal Canis mesomelas, which were blamed for 77% of all reported livestock losses. The presence of two known resident packs of wild dogs did not result in corresponding conflict reports with livestock owners, as wild dogs accounted for only 2% of reported predator attacks and largely subsisted on wild prey. Nevertheless, most of these wild dogs were killed in the months following this survey. Reported conflicts involving the two largest predator species (lion Panthera leo and spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta) declined with increasing distance from protected areas. Leaving livestock unattended during the day seems to facilitate predation but kraaling livestock at night reduces predation. Compensation payments for livestock losses did not demonstrably change livestock owners’ willingness to coexist with predators. Our results corroborate studies from elsewhere that simple improvements in livestock husbandry practices would help mitigate human-carnivore conflicts.