Assessmnt Of Human Wild Animals Conflict And Management Strategy In Gera District, South Western Ethiopia

Abstract

Human-wildlife conflict exists in different forms all over the world and experienced more in developing countries. Presently in south western Ethiopia wild animals compete for resource with human being and in conflict with each other. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the current status of human wild animals’ conflict and management strategy in Gera, south western Ethiopia. Data were collected in two trips via semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussion, direct observation and key informant. Total count was used to estimate population of top ranked wild animals in sampled forest. One-way ANOVA was used to analyses cause of human wild animal’s conflict whereas One-way ANOVA and t test were used to analyze damage caused by wild animals. Pearson correlation was used to test the relation between distance of study village and family size with damage events. Chisquare test was used to analyze number of top ranked wild animals between dry and wet season and traditional methods used by the respondents. The result showed that of all respondents about 50% and 22% of them reported that the existence of HWC manifested through crop damage and livestock predation respectively. The response of respondents was significantly different on each conflict type namely crop and livestock damage and crop damage only (P=0.00). Respondents report habitat disturbance, proximity to natural forest, increased subsistence agriculture, increased coverage of plantation forest, increased of wild animals’ population as causes of HWC. Olive Baboon, Bush Pig, Warthogs, Grivet Monkey and Porcupine were the identified damage causing wild animals. The most predators on small ruminant and chickens were Olive Baboons. A total of 912 damage events were registered on five sample sites which was sown maize, teff and sorghum in the production season 2013/2014. The registered damage event were significantly different from site to site (P =0.037) in which it was high in sites which have less distance from forest edge. A total of 259 and 240 Olive Baboons, and 126 and 148 Grivet Monkey were estimated in the sampled forest in dry and wet season respectively. There was no significant difference between the number of both wild animals in wet and dry (P > 0.05). Respondents used guarding, chasing, fencing, scarecrow and smoking to defend crop raiders. There was significant difference between respondents (P = 0.000) in using those traditional methods in which about 30% of them used guarding and 0.8% of them used smoking which was the highest and lowest methods used by respondents respectively. The present study identified the existence of HWC in Gera south western Ethiopia and manifested through crop damage and livestock predation. Therefore encouraging local communities to grow unpalatable crops to wild animals, cooperatively keep their crop and changing their means of farming to cash crops like coffee, chat and livestock raring. Therefore, investment should base on proper site selection which is feasible economically and ecologically and encouraging the development of ecotourism is a way out, the food habits of wild animals should be systematically studied.