Abstract
The use of poison to eliminate predators is causing African vulture populations to collapse. To understand the prevalence and motivations of this practice we conducted an extensive survey with South African commercial farmers. Using a specialised questioning technique and ad hoc quantitative methods we found that an estimated 22% and 31% of farmers used poison over a 1-year and 5-year period, respectively. Poison use hotspots generally coincided with small stock farming areas. The strongest predictor of poison use was whether farmers believed the practice to be common amongst their peers. Our results suggest that farmers’ attitudes to vultures are primarily positive, and farmers are less likely to use poisons if they frequently encounter vultures on their farm. Overall, our findings provide an understanding on poison use that provides leverage points to change farmers’ behaviour and help avert the African vulture crisis and possible cascading ecosystem impacts.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abrahamse, W., L. Steg, C. Vlek, and T. Rothengatter. 2005. A review of intervention studies aimed at household energy conservation. Journal of Environmental Psychology 25: 273–291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2005.08.002.
Badenhorst, C.G. 2014. The economic cost of large stock predation in the North West Province of South Africa. MSc Thesis: University of the Free State.
Blair, G., and K. Imai. 2012. Statistical analysis of list experiments. Political Analysis 20: 47–77. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpr048.
Blair, G., W. Chou, and K. Imai. 2019. List experiments with measurement error. Political Analysis 27: 455–480. https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2018.56.
Brink, C.W., A. Santangeli, A. Amar, K. Wolter, G. Tate, S. Krüger, A.S. Tucker, and R.L. Thomson. 2020a. Perceptions of vulture supplementary feeding site managers and potential hidden risks to avian scavengers. Conservation Science and Practice 2: e237. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.237.
Brink, C.W., S. Krüger, and A. Amar. 2020b. Potential release sites and strategies for a Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus reintroduction in South Africa. Ostrich 9: 118–128. https://doi.org/10.2989/00306525.2020.1753252.
Brink, C.W., A. Santangeli, A. Amar, K. Wolter, G. Tate, S. Krüger, A.S. Tucker, and R.L. Thomson. 2020c. Quantifying the spatial distribution and trends of supplementary feeding sites in South Africa and their potential contribution to vulture energetic requirements. Animal Conservation 23: 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12561.
Brown, C.J., and S.E. Piper. 1988. Status of Cape vultures in the Natal Drakensberg and their Cliff site selection. Ostrich 59: 139–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/00306525.1988.9633714.
Cheke, R.A., and M. El Hady Sidatt. 2019. A review of alternatives to fenthion for quelea bird control. Crop Protection 116: 15–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2018.10.005.
Cowling, R.M. 2014. Let’s get serious about human behavior and conservation. Conservation Letters 7: 147–148. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12106.
Craig, C.A., R.L. Thomson, M. Girardello, and A. Santangeli. 2018. The drivers and extent of poison use by Namibia’s communal farmers: Implications for averting the African vulture crisis. Ambio 48: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1128-6.
Deutsch, F.M. 1989. The false consensus effect: Is the self-justification hypothesis justified. Basic and Applied Social Psychology 10: 83–99. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324834basp1001.
Endangered Wildlife Trust. 2006. Prevention is the Cure. Proceedings of a workshop on holistic management of human-wildlife conflict in the agricultural sector of South Africa. ed. B. Daly, H. Davies-Mostert, W. Davies-Mostert, S. Evans, Y. Friedmann, N. King, T. Snow, and H. Stadler. Johannesburg, South Africa: CBSG Southern Africa. https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.2237.0085.
Gray, W.B., and J.P. Shimshack. 2011. The effectiveness of environmental monitoring and enforcement: A review of the empirical evidence. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 5: 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/req017.
Johnson, C.N., A. Balmford, B.W. Brook, J.C. Buettel, M. Galetti, L. Guangchun, and J.M. Wilmshurst. 2017. Biodiversity losses and conservation responses in the Anthropocene. Science 356: 270–275. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam9317.
Karanth, K.K., A.M. Gopalaswamy, R. DeFries, and N. Ballal. 2012. Assessing patterns of human-wildlife conflicts and compensation around a central indian protected area. PLoS ONE 7: e50433. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050433.
Karanth, K.K., L. Naughton-Treves, R. Defries, and A.M. Gopalaswamy. 2013. Living with wildlife and mitigating conflicts around three indian protected areas. Environmental Management 52: 1320–1332. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-013-0162-1.
Kerley, G.I.H., S.L. Wilson, and D. Balfour. 2018. Livestock predation and its management in South Africa: A scientific assessment, ed. G. Kerley, S. Wilson, and D. Balfour. Port Elizabeth: Centre for African Conservation Ecology, Nelson Mandela University.
Landman, A. 2016. Cost comparison predator methods. Predation Management South Africa. Retrieved 26 November, 2020 from http://www.pmfsa.co.za/home/detection-prevention.
Linnell, J.D.C., R. Aanes, J.E. Swenson, J. Odden, and M.E. Smith. 1997. Translocation of carnivores as a method for managing problem animals: A review. Biodiversity and Conservation 6: 1245–1257. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BIOC.0000034011.05412.cd.
Linnell, J.D.C., J. Odden, M.E. Smith, R. Aanes, J.E. Swenson, A. Ronn, and J.E. Swen. 2008. Carnivores and Predation Large carnivores that kill livestock: do “problem individuals” really exist. Society 27: 698–705.
Markandya, A., T. Taylor, A. Longo, M.N.N. Murty, S. Murty, and K. Dhavala. 2008. Counting the cost of vulture decline—an appraisal of the human health and other benefits of vultures in India. Ecological Economics 67: 194–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2008.04.020.
Marker, L.L., A.J. Dickman, and D.W. Macdonald. 2005. Perceived effectiveness of livestock-guarding dogs placed on Namibian farms. Rangeland Ecology and Management 58: 329–336. https://doi.org/10.2111/1551-5028(2005)058[0329:PEOLDP]2.0.CO;2.
McManus, J.S., A.J. Dickman, D. Gaynor, B.H. Smuts, and D.W. Macdonald. 2015. Dead or alive? Comparing costs and benefits of lethal and non-lethal human-wildlife conflict mitigation on livestock farms. ORYX 49: 687–695. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313001610.
Miller, J.R.B., Y.V. Jhala, and J. Jena. 2016a. Livestock losses and hotspots of attack from tigers and leopards in Kanha Tiger Reserve, Central India. Regional Environmental Change 16: 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0871-5.
Miller, J.R.B.B., K.J. Stoner, M.R. Cejtin, T.K. Meyer, A.D. Middleton, and O.J. Schmitz. 2016b. Effectiveness of contemporary techniques for reducing livestock depredations by large carnivores. Wildlife Society Bulletin 40: 806–815. https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.720.
Nattrass, N., and B. Conradie. 2018. Predators, livestock losses and poison in the South African Karoo. Journal of Cleaner Production 194: 777–785. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.05.169.
Nuno, A., and F.A.V. StJohn. 2015. How to ask sensitive questions in conservation: A review of specialized questioning techniques. Biological Conservation 189: 5–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2014.09.047.
Nyhus, P.J. 2016. Human-wildlife conflict and coexistence. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 41: 143–171. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-110615-085634.
Ogada, D.L. 2014. The power of poison: Pesticide poisoning of Africa’s wildlife. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1322: 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.12405.
Ogada, D., P. Shaw, R.L. Beyers, R. Buij, C. Murn, J.M. Thiollay, C.M. Beale, R.M. Holdo, et al. 2016. Another continental vulture crisis: Africa’s vultures collapsing toward extinction. Conservation Letters 9: 89–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12182.
Osbaldiston, R., and J.P. Schott. 2012. Environmental sustainability and behavioral science: Meta-analysis of proenvironmental behavior experiments. Environment and Behavior 44: 257–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916511402673.
Pérez Urdiales, M., A.O. Lansink, and A. Wall. 2016. Eco-efficiency among dairy farmers: The importance of socio-economic characteristics and farmer attitudes. Environmental and Resource Economics 64: 559–574. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-015-9885-1.
Plaza, P.I., E. Martínez-López, and S.A. Lambertucci. 2019. The perfect threat: Pesticides and vultures. Science of the Total Environment 687: 1207–1218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.160.
R Core Team. 2019. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Redpath, S.M., J. Young, A. Evely, W.M. Adams, W.J. Sutherland, A. Whitehouse, A. Amar, R.A. Lambert, et al. 2013. Understanding and managing conservation conflicts. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 28: 100–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2012.08.021.
Rowcliffe, J.M., E. De Merode, and G. Cowlishaw. 2004. Do wildlife laws work? Species protection and the application of a prey choice model to poaching decisions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 271: 2631–2636. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2004.2915.
Rust, N.A., K.M. Whitehouse-Tedd, and D.C. MacMillan. 2013. Perceived efficacy of livestock-guarding dogs in South Africa: Implications for cheetah conservation. Wildlife Society Bulletin 37: 690–697. https://doi.org/10.1002/wsb.352.
Rust, N.A., J. Tzanopoulos, T. Humle, and D.C. MacMillan. 2016. Why Has Human-Carnivore Conflict Not Been Resolved in Namibia? Society and Natural Resources 29: 1079–1094. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2016.1150544.
SABAP2. 2007. Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2. Retrieved 12 August, 2020, from http://sabap2.birdmap.africa/.
Santangeli, A., H. Lehtoranta, and T. Laaksonen. 2012. Successful voluntary conservation of raptor nests under intensive forestry pressure in a boreal landscape. Animal Conservation 15: 571–578. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-1795.2012.00551.x.
Santangeli, A., V. Arkumarev, N. Rust, and M. Girardello. 2016. Understanding, quantifying and mapping the use of poison by commercial farmers in Namibia—Implications for scavengers’ conservation and ecosystem health. Biological Conservation 204: 205–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.10.018.
Santangeli, A., M. Girardello, E. Buechley, A. Botha, E. Di Minin, and A. Moilanen. 2019. Priority areas for conservation of Old World vultures. Conservation Biology 33: 1056–1065. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13282.
Scasta, J.D., B. Stam, and J.L. Windh. 2017. Rancher-reported efficacy of lethal and non-lethal livestock predation mitigation strategies for a suite of carnivores. Scientific Reports 7: 14105. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-14462-1.
Statistics South Africa. 2010. Census of Commercial Agriculture 2007. Report No. 11–02–01. Pretoria, South Africa.
Swan, G.J.F., S.M. Redpath, S. Bearhop, and R.A. McDonald. 2017. Ecology of Problem Individuals and the Efficacy of Selective Wildlife Management. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 32: 518–530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2017.03.011.
Thompson, L.J., and A.C. Blackmore. 2020. A brief review of the legal protection of vultures in South Africa. Ostrich 91: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.2989/00306525.2019.1674938.
van der Ploeg, J., M. Cauilan-Cureg, M. van Weerd, and W.T. De Groot. 2011. Assessing the effectiveness of environmental education: mobilizing public support for Philippine crocodile conservation. Conservation Letters 4: 313–323. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2011.00181.x.
van Niekerk, H.N. 2010. The cost of predation on small livestock in South Africa by medium-sized predators. MSc Thesis: University of the Free State.
van Velden, J.L., K. Wilson, P.A. Lindsey, H. McCallum, B.H.Z. Moyo, and D. Biggs. 2020. Bushmeat hunting and consumption is a pervasive issue in African savannahs: insights from four protected areas in Malawi. Biodiversity and Conservation 29: 1443–1464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-020-01944-4.
Whytock, R.C., B.J. Morgan, T. Awa, Z. Bekokon, E.A. Abwe, R. Buij, M. Virani, J.A. Vickery, et al. 2018. Quantifying the scale and socioeconomic drivers of bird hunting in Central African forest communities. Biological Conservation 218: 18–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2017.11.034.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all respondents for their participation and the following individuals for their kind hospitality to a lonely researcher on the road: Vivienne and Mike van Breda, Kabous Louw, Sonja and Jutta Moxham and Rory Evans. Furthermore, Ben J. Dilley, for his carpentry skills and assistance in kitting out our research vehicle. This study was funded by the NRF-DST Centre of Excellence funding to the FitzPatrick Institute of Ornithology. AS was funded by the Academy of Finland (Grant No. 307909).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical approval
Informed consent was provided before each interview. To ensure anonymity of respondents this consent was obtained verbally. This study was approved by the Faculty of Science Research Ethics Committee at the University of Cape Town (Approval code: FSREC 19—2019).
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.Compliance with ethical standards
Supplementary information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Brink, C.W., Thomson, R.L., Amar, A. et al. Prevalence and drivers of poison use by South African commercial farmers and perceptions of alternative livestock protection measures. Ambio 50, 1211–1221 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01461-2
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01461-2