Conflictos entre humanos y vida silvestre en América Latina: una revisión sistemática sobre el jaguar (Panthera onca) y el oso andino (Tremarctos ornatus)

Sources of data collection

A systematic review of articles was conducted following the PRISMA 2020 Statement (Page et al., 2021) (Figure 1). The databases (Table 1) were consulted in “all fields” and filtered for articles or research articles. The same keywords and search strings were used in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar: human-wildlife AND conflict AND ((Andean AND bear) OR jaguar OR (Tremarctos AND ornatus) OR (Panthera AND onca)) AND (Latin AND America). Science Direct did not allow too many Booleans connectors, so the keywords were modified to human-wildlife AND conflict AND ((Andean bear) OR jaguar OR (Tremarctos ornatus) OR (Panthera onca)) AND (Latin America). Taking into consideration the geographical scope of the review, Google Scholar was also used as a source of articles in Spanish, since documents in this language were not found in the other databases.

The title and the abstract of each article were first screened on Scopus, then Science Direct, Web of Science, and finally on Google Scholar. Records directly related to the topic “Human- wildlife conflict in Latin America” with the species Panthera onca or Tremarctos ornatus were then selected for a deeper review (Table 1). After assessing the eligibility of 27 selected documents, 9 of them were excluded, as 3 articles on Scopus were not related to the analyzed species, and several were repeated across the databases: 2 articles from Scopus were also on Science Direct, 2 on Web of Science, and 2 more on Google Scholar. This first screening totaled 18 articles for review.

Lastly, 4 more articles related to the Andean bear were added by snowballing after checking the reference list of the articles included in the review, in order to get a more representative analysis. The final 22 articles (Appendix 1) were then saved in Zotero for management.

Review of sources and extraction of information

Each of the selected articles was reviewed in detail to extract information/variables related to HWC. This data was organized in an Excel using the following structure: title of the article, publication year, authors, country and study area of the research, species studied, identified conflict, quantification of the problem, strategies applied by communities to solve the problem, effectiveness of those strategies (if it was assessed), and strategies proposed by the authors to solve the problem. None of the articles established how to identify the effectiveness of the strategies. So, for the purposes of this systematic review, the effectiveness was defined as the “measure of the success in achieving a clearly stated objective” (McCormick, 1981), understanding the objective as the management of HWC assessed by the authors of the publications. Finally, frequency distributions were analyzed for identified variables.

Geographic location

The articles cover research from 10 Latin American countries (Figure 2). The country with the most articles was Ecuador (5); followed by Brazil (3), Colombia (3), and Peru (3); then Mexico (2) and Costa Rica (2); and finally, Honduras (1), Panama (1), Bolivia (1), and Argentina (1). Of the analyzed publications, 12 (54.55%) corresponded to the jaguar (from Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Argentina) and 10 (45.45%) to the Andean bear (from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia). The only country with research on both species was Ecuador (2 articles about the jaguar and 3 about the Andean bear).

Problem identification and quantification

Figure 2: Countries in Latin America where HWC related to the jaguar and the Andean bear have been studied.

Six main problems were associated to these species (Figure 3). The most common one was attacks on livestock. For the jaguar, this was mentioned in 9 of 12 articles, and for Andean bear, in 4 of 10 articles. Another common problem was attacks on humans. One article registered an attack on two people by an Andean bear between 2002-2008 (Figueroa, 2015) in Peru, and an article from Brazil described two nonfatal attacks on people from 2007-2010 and one fatal attack in 2008 (Campos et al., 2011). The Andean bear was also connected to damage to plantations, while the jaguar was held responsible for attacks on domestic animals such as dogs. In one of the articles about Andean bears in Peru, the authors did not identify any problem, likely due to spatial segregation between bears and cattle (despite sharing elevation range).

The reviewed documents also presented quantities regarding killed animals, attacks (on livestock or humans), and plantations damaged, in different periods of time. The highest number of attacks on livestock by jaguars was reported in an article from Costa Rica: 280 attacks until 2014 (Amit & Jacobson, 2017), however, the authors claim that the attackers could have been pumas (Puma concolor). For the Andean bear, 250 attacks on cattle were reported from 2009 to 2012 in Ecuador (Jampel, 2016), but there is no information to determine whether they were carried out by one or several individuals. Finally, an article from Colombia registered damages to 190 plantain plants and 47 banana plants in 198 ha of land from April of 2017 to March of 2018 (Escobar et al., 2020).

Community strategies to manage HWC

The most common strategy used by communities to manage HWC was hunting or killing the animal (9 articles or 40.91% for jaguars and 4 articles or 18.18% for Andean bears) (Figure 4), followed by scaring it away (1 article or 4.54 % for jaguars and 2 articles or 9.09 % for Andean bears). Other less common strategies included the use of fences (both electric and non-electric) and permanent livestock supervision (1 article or 4.54 % of the total for the jaguars and 1 article or 4.54 % for the Andean bear). Some measures were found exclusively for the jaguar: night enclosures (2 articles or 9.09% of the total), stocks traps, poisoning, mutilation, guard animals, guard dogs, and grouping livestock close to human facilities (the six last were mentioned just in one article). Thirty-six percent of the articles (8) did not include information about community strategies to manage HWC.

Figure 3: Problems caused by the jaguar and the Andean bear identified in the selected articles.

Figure 4: Strategies used by communities to manage HWC related to jaguars and Andean bears in Latin America.

Figure 5: Strategies proposed by researchers to address the HWC related to jaguars and Andean bears in Latin America.

Author strategies to manage HWC

The most common strategy proposed by authors to manage HWC was environmental and conservation education, (four articles for each species), followed by the design of compensation schemes for farmers and ranchers (three articles for each species), and incentive-based approaches as tourism and improved livestock management (mentioned twice for each species). Less frequent strategies included training farmers on techniques to mitigate livestock predation, the use of visual and acoustic repellants, separated livestock-dedicated water sources, electric fences, among others.

Effectiveness of strategies to manage HWC

Only one article (4.55%) addressed the effectiveness of strategies used by communities to manage HWC. The authors analyzed the use of fences to protect crops from the Andean bear in Colombia, and determined that it is not an effective strategy. Although the plants were protected by 2-wire fencing to restrict livestock, bears were still able to enter and damage them (Escobar et al., 2020). The development of conservation programs (existing strategy) was also deemed ineffective. Despite the existence of a National Andean Bear Program in Colombia, its implementation by the government has been insufficient. This oversight has often resulted in retaliatory bear killings even in the absence of damage.

Two articles (9.09 %) assessed the effectiveness of strategies proposed by authors. One of them is mentioned above (Escobar et al., 2020). The other, related to the jaguar in Mexico, found that electric fences and night enclosures were effective strategies to avoid livestock predation, since the predation rate dropped significantly after the implementation of these measures (de la Torre et al., 2021). During the monitoring period (167 months), only one predation incident was registered (four sheep were killed by a jaguar because the rancher did not enclose them). According to the authors, this indicates a high level of effectiveness of electric fences and night enclosures to prevent jaguar attacks on livestock.

One article assessed the theoretical effectiveness of a proposed strategy (i.e., non-existing) in Brazil. For the authors, the financial feasibility of a compensation scheme through wildlife tourism (Tortato et al., 2017) could be effective, since it would triplicate the estimated average land-use revenue, when compared to traditional cattle ranching across the Brazilian Pantanal. However, the authors suggested that it would be necessary to improve livestock management practices (e.g., the use of anti-predation methods) before developing a tourist-oriented compensation scheme.