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Human-Wildlife Conflicts

Has your home ever been intruded by monkeys? Or your dustbin have been invaded by wild animals? Or have your crops being raided by elephants or wild boar?

Then, you have experienced Human-wildlife conflicts!

So what is exactly human-wildlife conflict (HWC)? It is a conflict that arises when the interest of humans and wildlife oppose with each other. For example, when deforestation occurs for development and animals are left with no home. Another example is when large carnivores such as tigers roam into villages to find food while simultaneously pose a threat by killing livelihood such as farm animals and put human life in danger. This conflict comes hand in hand.

Malaysia, as one of the world's megadiverse countries, is ranked as 12th in the world based on the National Biodiversity Index. That being said, Malaysia is highly susceptible to HWC. HWC in Malaysia includes a vast array of species, from mammals and reptiles. The main animals involved are long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis), Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and wild boars (Sus scrofa) (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The percentage of human-wildlife conflict complaints made by Malaysians from 2006 to 2015 (Image from PERHILITAN).

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Long-tailed macaques dominated the HWC's in the country, with 66% of the HWC complaints (out of 86 thousands complaints) were received from the public due to this primate. Long-tailed macaques are an edge species which means that they live at forest borders. Factors include; habitat loss, improper waste management and being fed by people, drive these opportunistic macaques to move into residential areas and start obtaining their food from anthropogenic food sources. Meanwhile, provision of food items by people can lead to habituation toward humans and human food. For example, macaques will no longer be scared to approach humans and start to forage in the rubbish bins, consequently littering the whole neighbourhood. A side effect of this, is it will attract other animals such as monitor lizards. Other reasons that cause the massive spreading of macaque species in Peninsular Malaysia were the 1980s ban on macaque export for research purposes and the macaque's high reproductive rate.

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) 

Human-elephant conflict (HEC) places second in the major HWC in Peninsular Malaysia after the long-tailed macaques, which represent 9% of the HWC complaints. Elephants were known for their ability to crop raid farms and plantations. Occasionally, elephants can cause damages to infrastructure, fences and in some cases, injuries and even cause human casualties. It was estimated that more than RM27 million were loss due to HEC. This massive financial loss obviously made the conflicts between plantation owners and elephants worse. As a result, some local communities took the matters in their own hands by discreetly killing the elephants. Similarly to long-tailed macaques, habitat loss remains the main factor behind this HEC. In addition, defenceless fruit plantations near the elephant's habitat can also attract these large mammals to come out of the forest.

Wild boars (Sus scrofa)

Wild boars are highly adaptive animals and can cause large damage to farms, plantations, soils and also raise health issues. In large group sizes, wild boars can inflict serious damages to plantations, "because they rip out thousands of trees and churn up the soil, but also because they eat anything on the forest floor- a seed, an egg, a lizard". Similarly with elephants, these damages adversely affect their relationship with farmers and plantation owners. There are also cases where wild boars end up injuring people, which usually occur when people enter their habitat or when these boars forage in urban areas. Habitat loss and the decline of natural predators are the reasons behind this conflict. 

Want to know more about what are the steps taken to reduce these human-wildlife conflicts?

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Definition:

• Megadiverse countries: refer to those nations with the highest species diversity on earth (i.e. discovered and still undiscovered).
• National Biodiversity Index: is an estimation of biodiversity richness and endemism in a country.
• Anthropogenic: originated from people.
• Habituation: is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

More about the human-wildlife conflicts:

Biodiversity Forum 2016: Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation and Action in Agricultural Sector at: http://www.mpoc.org.my/upload/13144901_HUMAN_WILDLIFE_CONFLICT_IN_PENINSULAR_MALAYSIA_CURREN_STATUS_AND_OVERVIEW.pdf

Ahmad Zafir, A.W., & Magintan, D. (2016). Historical Review of Human-Elephant Conflict in Peninsular Malaysia. Journal of Wildlife and Parks, 31, 1-19.

Hambali, K., Ismail, A., Zulkifli, S. Z., Badrul-Munir, M. Z., & Amir, A. (2012). Human-Macaque Conflict and Pest Behaviours of Long-tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in Kuala Selangor Nature Park. Tropical Natural History, 12 (2), 189-205.

Karuppannan, K., Saaban, S., Mustapa, A., Zainal Abidin, F., Azimat, N., & Keliang, C. (2014). Population Status of Long-Tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis) in Peninsular Malaysia. Journal of Primatology, 3 (1), 1-4.

PERHILITAN. (2006). Pelan Pengurusan Kera (Macaca fascicularis) Bermasalah di Semenanjung Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: PERHILITAN.

Hordes of Wild Pigs Make Palm Oil Even More Destructive at: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/palm-oil-wild-pig-boom-rainforest-environment/