Conflict between humans and other animal species is an age-old phenomenon.
'In southern Africa, there are many species that have for a long time been labelled as "problem animals" or "vermin". In the past, hatred towards those species developed to such a point, that all predators were believed to be a problem to livestock and humans and needed to be removed.
This resulted in many predators, scavengers and other animals being irrationally and relentlessly persecuted and exterminated, with devastating impacts on the environment and its ecology. Unfortunately, many farmers today still hold this prejudiced view and continue to use undesirable methods when dealing with human-wildlife conflict.'1
The Endangered Wildlife Trust has released a booklet dealing with the issues raised by wildlife conflict prevention which can be downloaded in pdf format (2.6Mb) by clicking here. A lower resolution version (1.7 Mb) can be downloaded here.
An extract page from the booklet appears below.
1Endangered Wildlife Trust Predators and Farmers p4