ABSTRACT Livestock depredation has severe socio-economic impacts on local communities. Consequently, carnivores are often persecuted because of actual or perceived threats to livestock. Perceptions of threats are often shaped by underlying socio-cultural values, which make resolving human conflicts with carnivores complex. We conducted questionnaires with local farmers (n = 276) at workshops to assess annual livestock depredation rates in Namibia’s eastern communal conservancies. On average, farmers lost 8% of total herd size to depredation, with high variability among respondents. The main predators were African wild dog and black-backed jackal. Depredation intensified with herd size and carnivore familiarity (i.e., better carnivore identification skills and more frequent carnivore encounters). We suggest that patterns of depredation are predicted by carnivore occurrence and we recommend spatial modeling of risk to prioritize mitigation efforts. Reported livestock husbandry practices used before workshops were apparently ineffective, which might be attributed to lack of knowledge and/or resources.

中文翻译：

---

在纳米比亚东部社区保护区评估人类与食肉动物的冲突

摘要 牲畜掠夺对当地社区造成严重的社会经济影响。因此，食肉动物经常因为对牲畜的实际或感知威胁而受到迫害。对威胁的看法通常受到潜在社会文化价值观的影响，这使得解决人类与食肉动物的冲突变得复杂。我们在研讨会上对当地农民（n = 276）进行了问卷调查，以评估纳米比亚东部社区保护区的年度牲畜掠夺率。平均而言，农民因掠夺而损失了总畜群规模的 8%，受访者之间差异很大。主要捕食者是非洲野狗和黑背豺。随着畜群规模和食肉动物的熟悉程度（即更好的食肉动物识别技能和更频繁的食肉动物遭遇），掠食加剧。我们建议通过食肉动物的出现来预测掠夺模式，我们建议风险空间建模以优先考虑缓解措施。所报告的研讨会之前使用的畜牧业做法显然是无效的，这可能是由于缺乏知识和/或资源。