User:PlatOccidentalis/Urban wildlife

Human Wildlife Conflict Section

While urban areas tend to decrease the overall biodiversity of species within the city, most cities retain the flora and fauna characteristic of their geographic area. As rates of urbanization and city sprawl increase worldwide, many urban areas sprawl further into wildlife habitat, causing increased human-wildlife encounters and the potential for negative and conflict-based encounters. Humans have lived alongside and near wild animals for centuries, but the expansion of the study of urban ecology has allowed for new information surrounding human-wildlife interactions. Human wildlife conflict can be categorized into disease transmission, physical attacks, and property damage, and can be inflicted by a range of wildlife, from predatory tigers to grain-eating rodents.

Benefits of human-wildlife interactions

Coyotes are a common predator found in urban ecosystems, often at the forefront of human-wildlife conflicts in areas of Los Angeles Count due to their ability to adapt to urban environments.

While negative human-wildlife conflicts can be damaging to the physical health of humans or property, human-wildlife interactions can be extremely beneficial in terms ecosystem health and cultural experiences.The presence of native species allows systems and food chains to function in a healthy way, providing ecosystem services to the humans living around these areas. These services include the provisioning of food and water, flood control, cultural services, and nutrient cycling.

Costs of conflict

The most direct impacts of human-wildlife conflict include loss of livelihood due to property damage, loss of possessions due to property damage, injury, or transmission of disease from wildlife to humans. After the direct impacts of conflict, however, the people facing human-wildlife conflict are left with long-term issues including opportunity costs and long-term fear of wildlife.

Conflicts between human and wildlife are most likely to occur in areas intermediate between rural and entirely urban landscapes, and these interactions are most likely to involve species with broad diets able to live in areas with high populations. Some areas are subject to more extreme conflicts between humans and wildlife, such as in Mozambique and Namibia, where more than 100 people are killed each year by crocodiles. In Asia and Africa, many communities are also subject to 10-15% loss of agricultural output to elephants. Disease transmission is also significant in cases of human-wildlife conflict, where sprawling cities can expand into environments that increase exposure to hosts of vector-borne diseases, causing large outbreaks in cities with greater density of people.

Conflict management

At the center of human-wildlife conflicts in urban areas are social attitudes towards wildlife encounters. A certain community's perception of risk of wildlife encounter greatly impacts their attitude towards wildlife, particularly in situations where livelihoods or safety are at risk. Many cutting-edge wildlife conflict management proposals include education programs to inform the public of both the risks and benefits of interacting with urban wildlife, and how to prevent hysteria and future negative encounters. Furthermore, conflict management includes addressing the hidden impacts of wildlife conflict, such as the disruption psychosocial wellbeing, disruption of livelihood and food sources, and food insecurity.