Elephants have been causing havoc for farmers in rural areas in Africa for as long as you care to mention. Lions, too. Elephants have also been troublesome in India. In South America, jaguars. The list is long.
Human-wildlife conflict is such a widespread issue it has even been turned into an initialism – HWC. And urban areas are not immune: baboons in Cape Town, vervet monkeys and crowned eagles in Durban, racoons in Toronto, black bears in Sierra Madre, bobcats in Los Angeles. It's pretty much everywhere. And although the focus is on the big mammals, we mustn't forget the little creatures, too.
Dr Karin Lourens of the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital lists some of those in Gauteng: owls, raptors, herons, water birds and storks; dassies (rock hyrax), bats, vervet monkeys, mongooses, genets, bush babies, porcupines, hedgehogs and even jackal and brown hyena; lizards, geckos, snakes and chameleons, terrapins and larger monitor lizards.
Insects and arachnids are another – often obliterated as pests. But pesticides have caused many insect-eating species’ numbers to dwindle. When last did you see a chameleon in your garden?
But it is possible, with a lot of work, education and public buy-in, to turn the ‘c’ of conflict into
