Khorozyan Igor, Soofi Mahmood, Soufi Mobin, Hamidi Amirhossein Khaleghi, Ghoddousi Arash, Waltert Matthias
Workgroup on Endangered Species, J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen , Göttingen , Germany.
Department of Environmental Sciences, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources , Gorgan , Iran.
PeerJ. 2017 Feb 23;5:e3049. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3049. eCollection 2017.
Human-carnivore conflicts over livestock depredation are increasingly common, yet little is understood about the role of husbandry in conflict mitigation. As shepherds and guarding dogs are most commonly used to curb carnivore attacks on grazing livestock, evaluation and improvement of these practices becomes an important task. We addressed this issue by studying individual leopard () attacks on sheep and goats in 34 villages near Golestan National Park, Iran. We obtained and analyzed data on 39 attacks, which included a total loss of 31 sheep and 36 goats in 17 villages. We applied non-parametric testing, Poisson Generalized Linear Modelling (GLM) and model selection to assess how numbers of sheep and goats killed per attack are associated with the presence and absence of shepherds and dogs during attacks, depredation in previous years, villages, seasons, ethnic groups, numbers of sheep and goats kept in villages, and distances from villages to the nearest protected areas. We found that 95.5% of losses were inflicted in forests when sheep and goats were accompanied by shepherds (92.5% of losses) and dogs (77.6%). Leopards tended to kill more sheep and goats per attack (surplus killing) when dogs were absent in villages distant from protected areas, but still inflicted most losses when dogs were present, mainly in villages near protected areas. No other variables affected numbers of sheep and goats killed per attack. These results indicate that local husbandry practices are ineffectual and the mere presence of shepherds and guarding dogs is not enough to secure protection. Shepherds witnessed leopard attacks, but could not deter them while dogs did not exhibit guarding behavior and were sometimes killed by leopards. In an attempt to make practical, low-cost and socially acceptable improvements in local husbandry, we suggest that dogs are raised to create a strong social bond with livestock, shepherds use only best available dogs, small flocks are aggregated into larger ones and available shepherds herd these larger flocks together. Use of deterrents and avoidance of areas close to Golestan and in central, core areas of neighboring protected areas is also essential to keep losses down.
人类与食肉动物在牲畜捕食问题上的冲突日益普遍，但对于畜牧管理在缓解冲突中所起的作用，人们了解甚少。由于牧羊人和护卫犬是最常用的防止食肉动物袭击放牧牲畜的手段，因此对这些做法进行评估和改进就成为一项重要任务。我们通过研究伊朗戈勒斯坦国家公园附近34个村庄里豹对绵羊和山羊的个体袭击事件来解决这个问题。我们获取并分析了39起袭击事件的数据，这些袭击造成17个村庄的31只绵羊和36只山羊死亡。我们运用非参数检验、泊松广义线性模型（GLM）和模型选择方法，来评估每次袭击中绵羊和山羊的死亡数量与袭击发生时牧羊人和狗的在场与否、前几年的捕食情况、村庄、季节、族群、村庄中饲养的绵羊和山羊数量以及村庄到最近保护区的距离之间的关联。我们发现，95.5%的牲畜损失发生在森林中，当时绵羊和山羊有牧羊人（92.5%的损失情况）和狗（77.6%的损失情况）陪伴。在远离保护区的村庄里，如果没有狗，豹每次袭击往往会杀死更多的绵羊和山羊（过度捕杀），但即便有狗在场，豹仍会造成大部分损失，主要是在靠近保护区的村庄。没有其他变量会影响每次袭击中绵羊和山羊的死亡数量。这些结果表明，当地的畜牧管理措施效果不佳，仅仅有牧羊人和护卫犬并不足以确保牲畜得到保护。牧羊人目睹了豹的袭击，但无法阻止它们，而狗没有表现出护卫行为，有时还会被豹杀死。为了在当地畜牧管理方面做出切实可行、低成本且社会可接受的改进，我们建议饲养狗，使其与牲畜建立紧密的社会联系，牧羊人只使用最优秀的狗，将小群牲畜合并为大群，并且让现有的牧羊人一起放牧这些大群牲畜。使用威慑手段以及避开靠近戈勒斯坦和邻近保护区核心区域的地方对于减少损失也至关重要。
