Abstract
Livestock rearing and agriculture are the main sources of communities to
sustain livelihood in the developing country like middle-mountain of the
Nepal. Leopard is a top predator in habitat of mid-hill which is a major
conflict wild animal. Forest degradation and declining wild prey
population bring leopard to conflict. The spatial and temporal patterns
of human-wildlife conflicts are poorly documented at provincial and
national level that hinders in formulating effective conflict mitigation
plan at real field. To assess pattern of human-leopard conflict (HLC) at
spatial and temporal scale, primary data was collected through
registered human wildlife conflict case collection which were
triangulated through interview with victim(n=156) and we used maximum
entropy along with relevant predictor variables to predict and map HLC
risk area at provincial level. The cases of HLC are increasing trend
last the five years. Annual average of 2.16 human death which shows
increasing trend (p<0.05), 5.16 human injury which shows
decreasing trend (p>0.05) and annual average of 159.6
livestock depredation which shows increasing trend (p<0.05)
were recorded in last five years. Winter is a main season of depredation
and goat was main depredated livestock. Out of total US$ 86892.25
($17378.45/year) economic loss, 78.57% was paid as relief indicating
implementation of government’s relief fund of human-wild conflict.
Results revealed mid elevated southern facing areas are more prone to
HLC with an ecological variable mean annual temperature as top predictor
including livestock density and distance to road. Predator-proof
livestock corrals, educating local communities about wildlife behavior
and timely management of problem animals will contribute to reduce the
conflict.