image: Coalition of two male cheetahs sniffing and marking at a scent marking site in a communication hub. view more
Credit: Image credit: Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research
Researchers examine how understanding socio-spatial organization of cheetahs can mitigate cheetah conflicts with humans. Conflict between humans and wildlife carnivores leads to declining global populations of carnivores due to retaliatory killing. However, insight into the socio-spatial organization of conflict species may provide non-lethal solutions to human-carnivore conflict. Between 2007 and 2018, Joerg Melzheimer and colleagues analyzed the landscape use and social activity of 106 GPS-collared wild cheetahs in central Namibia, where cheetahs are known to prey on farmland cattle calves. Cheetahs use scent marking sites to communicate with each other, and such sites were clustered in certain areas; clustered sites were defined in the study as communication hubs. Communication hubs were located in territorial areas and distributed across the landscape in a consistent pattern. Cheetahs often visited communication hubs for information exchange, establishing hotspots of cheetah abundance and activity. The annual number of calves lost to cheetah predation decreased by approximately 86% when farmers shifted breeding herds away from known cheetah communication hubs. Instead of following the herds, cheetahs remained and preyed on local wildlife within communication hubs. The findings suggest that conflict-prone areas are more problematic than individual cheetahs when it comes to human-cheetah conflict, according to the authors.
###
Article #20-02487: "Communication hubs of an asocial cat are the source of a human-carnivore conflict and key to its solution," by Joerg Melzheimer et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Joerg Melzheimer, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, GERMANY; tel: +49305168462; e-mail: <melzheimer@izw-berlin.de>
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences