A strategy for wildlife management in depopulating rural areas of Japan

Effects of expansion of protected areas and habitat transformation on spatiotemporal variation in human-wildlife conflict

Land-use changes and the expansion of protected areas (PAs) have fostered increased interactions between humans and wildlife, resulting in an escalation of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) globally. However, HWC spatiotemporal pattern variation and its associations with PAs and land-use change remain poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we mapped and analyzed HWCs from 1990 to 2022 across China. We comprehensively mapped the spatiotemporal dynamics of HWCs in ArcGIS with data sets stratified by county, year, and species; assessed the impact of PAs through propensity score matching; and analyzed the effects of habitat transformation with linear mixed models. As PA increased from 0 to 20,000 km2, the likelihood of HWCs initially increased (50%) before declining (20%). Conversely, as the distance from a PA grew, the likelihood of HWC gradually decreased (0 beyond 65 km). There was a temporal lag between the establishment of a PA and the occurrence of HWC. Habitat loss catalyzed HWCs, whereas decreased levels of habitat fragmentation sometimes initially caused a temporary increase in HWCs. In general, the distribution of PAs greatly affected HWC occurrence, and habitat loss and fragmentation were critical drivers of HWCs, both of which exhibited time-lagged effects. HWC has become more challenging to address as conservation initiatives have led to significant recovery of the habitats and populations of wild animals. Further measures to address the HWCs are needed to ensure the preservation of animal welfare while fostering the mutually beneficial coexistence of humans and animal species. Finally, our study provides an important starting point for informing future HWC research and conservation planning on a global scale.

Management of Coexistence and Conflicts Between Humans and Macaques in Japan

Conflicts between humans and Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) have intensified due to urban and agricultural expansion, reducing natural habitats and pushing macaques into human settlements. This review examines strategies for managing human-macaque coexistence in Japan. Since the 1970s, urbanisation and deforestation have led to increased macaque migration into populated areas, resulting in property damage, crop loss, and, in some cases, aggressive encounters. The growing macaque population underscores the urgency of effective management programmes. Strategies include preventive measures, such as weeding to limit food sources, habitat modification, and community-based interventions to reduce attractants. Non-lethal deterrents, including visual and auditory scare tactics, trained guard animals, and electric fences, have been implemented to discourage macaques from entering human spaces. Physical barriers, such as fences and buffer zones, provide long-term mitigation but require maintenance and community cooperation. Fertility control, including sterilisation and hormonal contraception, offers a long-term population management solution but presents logistical challenges. Lethal control and capture-relocation, though controversial, remain options for particularly problematic individuals. Additionally, integrating One Health and One Conservation approaches into macaque management allows for a holistic strategy that considers disease risks, ecological balance, and ethical implications. A balanced management plan that incorporates multiple strategies, community participation, and continuous monitoring is crucial for mitigating conflicts and fostering sustainable coexistence between humans and macaques.

Snapshot Japan 2023: the first camera trap dataset under a globally standardised protocol in Japan

Background

There is an urgent need to develop global observation networks to quantify biodiversity trends for evaluating achievements of targets of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Camera traps are a commonly used tool, with the potential to enhance global observation networks for monitoring wildlife population trends and has the capacity to constitute global observation networks by applying a unified sampling protocol. The Snapshot protocol is simple and easy for camera trapping which is applied in North America and Europe. However, there is no regional camera-trap network with the Snapshot protocol in Asia.

New information

We present the first dataset from a collaborative camera-trap survey using the Snapshot protocol in Japan conducted in 2023. We collected data at 90 locations across nine arrays for a total of 6162 trap-nights of survey effort. The total number of sequences with mammals and birds was 7967, including 20 mammal species and 23 avian species. Apart from humans, wild boar, sika deer and rodents were the most commonly observed taxa on the camera traps, covering 57.9% of all the animal individuals. We provide the dataset with a standard format of Wildlife Insights, but also with Camtrap DP 1.0 format. Our dataset can be used for a part of the global dataset for comparing relative abundances of wildlife and for a baseline of wildlife population trends in Japan. It can also used for training machine-learning models for automatic species identifications.

Deep learning for automatic facial detection and recognition in Japanese macaques: illuminating social networks

Individual identification plays a pivotal role in ecology and ethology, notably as a tool for complex social structures understanding. However, traditional identification methods often involve invasive physical tags and can prove both disruptive for animals and time-intensive for researchers. In recent years, the integration of deep learning in research has offered new methodological perspectives through the automatisation of complex tasks. Harnessing object detection and recognition technologies is increasingly used by researchers to achieve identification on video footage. This study represents a preliminary exploration into the development of a non-invasive tool for face detection and individual identification of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) through deep learning. The ultimate goal of this research is, using identification done on the dataset, to automatically generate a social network representation of the studied population. The current main results are promising: (i) the creation of a Japanese macaques' face detector (Faster-RCNN model), reaching an accuracy of 82.2% and (ii) the creation of an individual recogniser for the Kōjima Island macaque population (YOLOv8n model), reaching an accuracy of 83%. We also created a Kōjima population social network by traditional methods, based on co-occurrences on videos. Thus, we provide a benchmark against which the automatically generated network will be assessed for reliability. These preliminary results are a testament to the potential of this approach to provide the scientific community with a tool for tracking individuals and social network studies in Japanese macaques.

Public attitudes and intentions toward engaging in reintroduction of wolves to Japan

Reintroducing apex predators is an important approach in ecosystem restoration; however, it is challenging. Wolves (Canis lupus) were exterminated in Japan around 1900, and since then, there has been a lack of top predators throughout the country. Currently, the wild ungulate population is increasing, causing agricultural and forest damage. This has triggered an ongoing debate among researchers and nongovernmental organizations on whether wolves should be reintroduced to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems. We conducted a nationwide survey to examine public attitudes toward wolf reintroduction (WR) in Japan. We sent online questionnaires to 88,318 citizens across the country. Among the 12,028 respondents, excluding those with invalid or incomplete answers and unqualified respondents, we obtained and analyzed 7500 responses that were representative of Japanese citizens in terms of some key sociodemographic attributes. More respondents disagreed with WR (39.9%) than agreed (17.1%), and many respondents (43.0%) were undecided. Structural equation modeling revealed that risk perceptions affected public attitudes, implying that the greater the perceived threat of wolf attacks, the less likely people are to support WR. In contrast, attitudes toward wolves (e.g., "I like wolves.") influenced by wildlife value orientation and beliefs about the ecological role of wolves (e.g., controlling deer populations) positively affected public attitudes toward WR. Those who had a positive attitude toward WR showed intentions to engage in behaviors that support WR. Our results suggest that the dissemination of information related to the ecological role of wolves and the development of a more mutualistic mindset in people could positively influence public support for WR in Japan.

Public tolerance of lethal wildlife management in Japan: A best-worst scaling questionnaire analysis

Human-wildlife conflict is a major problem for sustainable development worldwide. Lethal management options play an essential role in wildlife management. However, assessing public tolerance of lethal options is crucial. While this has been studied for specific targets, variations in public tolerance by wildlife characteristics such as biological class and nativeness remain unexplored. Accordingly, we administered a questionnaire survey (n = 1000) using best-worst scaling to reveal the comparative tolerance of lethal wildlife management for 10 wildlife species (including mammals, birds, fish, and plants) in Japan. We found that public tolerance of lethal wildlife management differed by species rather than biological class and nativeness. We then used cluster analysis to group respondents with similar lethal wildlife management tolerances and found commonalities based on age, sex, and beliefs. This study offers theoretical insights for understanding public tolerance of lethal wildlife management as well as practical recommendations for wildlife managers.

Meeting the challenges of wild boar hunting in a modern society: The case of France

Modern hunting is an ambivalent practice, torn between leisure and labor. Nowhere are these conflicting dimensions better manifested than for wild boar-a simultaneous game and pest species in many countries. Here, we consider the sociological, political and cultural phenomenon of wild boar hunting from a change perspective, starting at its historical roots to future implications concerning the changing demographics, drivers, needs and practices of a modernizing hunting community. Using the case context of France, we present an approach to deconstructing each component of wild boar hunting firstly, and subsequently the external forces that change the nature of hunting. The objective of this manuscript is to discuss of the wild boar optimal harvesting to be applied in changing social and ecological environment. Findings show that the challenges facing wild boar management will likely intensify in the future, especially under the spotlight of a controversial public debate.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on human-nature interactions: Pathways, evidence and implications

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the global response have dramatically changed people's lifestyles in much of the world. These major changes, as well as the associated changes in impacts on the environment, can alter the dynamics of the direct interactions between humans and nature (hereafter human-nature interactions) far beyond those concerned with animals as sources of novel human coronavirus infections. There may be a variety of consequences for both people and nature.Here, we suggest a conceptual framework for understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect the dynamics of human-nature interactions. This highlights three different, but not mutually exclusive, pathways: changes in (a) opportunity, (b) capability and (c) motivation.Through this framework, we also suggest that there are several feedback loops by which changes in human-nature interactions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic can lead to further changes in these interactions such that the impacts of the pandemic could persist over the long term, including after it has ended.The COVID-19 pandemic, which has had the most tragic consequences, can also be viewed as a 'global natural experiment' in human-nature interactions that can provide unprecedented mechanistic insights into the complex processes and dynamics of these interactions and into possible strategies to manage them to best effect. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Human-wildlife coexistence in a changing world

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a key topic in conservation and agricultural research. Decision makers need evidence-based information to design sustainable management plans and policy instruments. However, providing objective decision support can be challenging because realities and perceptions of human-wildlife interactions vary widely between and within rural, urban, and peri-urban areas. Land users who incur costs through wildlife argue that wildlife-related losses should be compensated and that prevention should be subsidized. Supporters of human-wildlife coexistence policies, such as urban-dwelling people, may not face threats to their livelihoods from wildlife. Such spatial heterogeneity in the cost and benefits of living with wildlife is germane in most contemporary societies. This Special Section features contributions on wildlife-induced damages that range from human perspectives (land use, psychology, governance, local attitudes and perceptions, costs and benefits, and HWC and coexistence theory) to ecological perspectives (animal behavior). Building on current literature and articles in this section, we developed a conceptual model to help frame HWC and coexistence dimensions. The framework can be used to determine damage prevention implementation levels and approaches to HWC resolution. Our synthesis revealed that inter- and transdisciplinary approaches and multilevel governance approaches can help stakeholders and institutions implement sustainable management strategies that promote human-wildlife coexistence.