Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Royal Enclave, Sriramapura, P.O. Jakkur, Bangalore, 560 064, India.
Manipal University, Madhav Nagar, Manipal, 576 104, India.
Ambio. 2017 Oct;46(6):655-666. doi: 10.1007/s13280-016-0858-6. Epub 2017 Jan 10.
In human-populated landscapes worldwide, domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are the most abundant terrestrial carnivore. Although dogs have been used for the protection of livestock from wild carnivores, they have also been implicated as predators of livestock. We used a combination of methods (field surveys, interview surveys, and data from secondary sources) to examine the patterns and factors driving livestock depredation by free-ranging dogs, as well as economic losses to local communities in a Trans-Himalayan agro-pastoralist landscape in India. Our results show that livestock abundance was a better predictor of depredation in the villages than local dog abundance. Dogs mainly killed small-bodied livestock and sheep were the most selected prey. Dogs were responsible for the majority of livestock losses, with losses being comparable to that by snow leopards. This high level of conflict may disrupt community benefits from conservation programs and potentially undermine the conservation efforts in the region through a range of cascading effects.
在全球人口密集的景观中，家犬（Canis lupus familiaris）是最丰富的陆地食肉动物。尽管狗被用于保护牲畜免受野生食肉动物的侵害，但它们也被认为是牲畜的捕食者。我们使用了一系列方法（实地调查、访谈调查和二手资料数据），研究了在印度横断喜马拉雅农牧景观中，自由放养的狗对牲畜的捕食模式和驱动因素，以及对当地社区的经济损失。我们的结果表明，牲畜的丰富度比村庄中当地狗的丰富度更能预测捕食行为。狗主要杀死小体型的牲畜，而绵羊是最受选择的猎物。狗是造成大多数牲畜损失的原因，损失与雪豹造成的损失相当。这种高冲突水平可能会破坏社区从保护计划中获得的利益，并通过一系列级联效应，有可能破坏该地区的保护工作。
