School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Sciences Campus, Bangalore, Karnataka, 560012, India.
Ambio. 2018 Oct;47(6):711-720. doi: 10.1007/s13280-017-1008-5. Epub 2018 Jan 13.
Attitudinal differences toward wildlife have important implications for conflict management and when the species in question have strong cultural and religious associations, conflict mitigation becomes a challenging endeavor. We investigated farmers' attitudes toward two different crop-raiding macaque species, the rhesus macaque in northern India, and the bonnet macaque in southern India. Apart from regional differences in attitudes, we also assessed temporal changes in attitude toward the rhesus macaque. We carried out household surveys using a semistructured questionnaire to collect data. Our findings reveal that respondents in southern and northern India differ significantly in their views regarding species sanctity and preference for mitigation options. Although people's perceptions of the rhesus macaques had changed over time in northern India, farmers were still unwilling to cause harm to the macaques. We discuss the underlying causes of these observed differences in attitude and their impact on the management of human-macaque conflict.
对野生动物的态度差异对冲突管理有重要影响，而当涉及到具有强烈文化和宗教联系的物种时，缓解冲突就成为一项具有挑战性的任务。我们调查了农民对两种不同的作物掠夺猕猴物种的态度，一种是印度北部的恒河猕猴，另一种是印度南部的戴帽猕猴。除了态度上的地区差异外，我们还评估了对恒河猕猴的态度随时间的变化。我们使用半结构化问卷进行了家庭调查，以收集数据。我们的研究结果表明，印度南部和北部的受访者在物种神圣性和对缓解措施的偏好方面存在显著差异。尽管印度北部人们对恒河猕猴的看法随着时间的推移而发生了变化，但农民仍然不愿意伤害猕猴。我们讨论了这些观察到的态度差异的潜在原因及其对人类-猕猴冲突管理的影响。
