Human dimensions of wildlife © Chavoux Luyt

Vol. 0 (2017), pp.~1–10 ISSN XXX-XXXX-XXXX

Human-wildlife conflict in Namibia: an agricultural perspective

E. du C. Luyt*¹, A.J. Leslie¹, C. Hui¹, L.L. Marker²
¹Stellenbosch University, ²Cheetah Conservation Fund

Draft revision of 2018/05/10

Namibian farmers were surveyed to estimate farmer-predator conflict. Since most cheetahs and
leopards occur outside protected areas, continued human-wildlife conflict poses a risk to their
long-term survival. Livestock depredation was reportedly the major cause of livestock loss
on commercial Namibian farms. Leopards, cheetahs, caracals and jackals were the primary
predators of livestock, leopards being the primary predator on cattle and jackals on small live-
stock. On average 9.2 Livestock Units per farm per year were killed by predators, with a few
farms losing more than double this average. About 70% of farmers killed predators as part of
their management, but the results suggests that this approach is ineffective. A small significant
decrease in predation losses was associated with higher prey diversity. With farmers having
little idea about the costs of anti-predation methods, cost-effective and ecologically sustain-
able methods, resulting in lower livestock losses and sustainable ecosystems, need to be be
identified.

Keywords: Human-wildlife conflict, Namibia, livestock depredation, farmer-predator conflict,

leopard, cheetah, caracal, jackal, brown hyaena.

Introduction
Namibia is an arid country with one of the lowest human
population densities on earth. It is therefore not well suited
for crop farming except in the far North where mostly com-
munal subsistence farming can be found (see first map be-
low on the following page). Overall, livestock farming is the
main source of livelihood over most of the area of Namibia
with the agricultural sector being the greatest provider of em-
ployment in Namibia (Chiriboga, Kilmer, Fan & Gawande,
2008). Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) between livestock
farmers and predators is an increasing worldwide problem
(Treves & Karanth, 2003b), and the major cause of death for
Namibian cheetahs (Marker, Dickman, Mills & Macdonald,
2010). This conflict may be the primary threat to carnivores
in Africa (Ray, Hunter & Zigouris, 2005). Farmers, as the
custodians of most of the land in countries where agricul-
ture is a major economic activity, should be natural partners
in the conservation of wildlife. However, human-wildlife
conflict conflict is increasingly seen as primarily a conflict
between conservationists and farmers (Nattrass & Conradie,
2013; Treves & Karanth, 2003a). A major reason for the dis-
connect and breakdown of trust between farmers and wild-
life managers is the uncertainty about how great the effect of
predators truly is on livestock farming. Conservationists of-
*Corresponding author: Chavoux@gmail.com. This research
was funded by a NRF Innovation Doctoral Scholarship.
ten think that livestock farmers are exaggerating their losses,
while farmers feel that conservationists are not sympathetic
and offer impractical solutions to their very real problems
with predators. An important step in reducing the subjectiv-
ity inherent in this conflict is getting better data on the actual
and relative losses to predation.
In 2010, a study was funded by South African livestock
producers’ organisations to determine the economic effects
of depredation on small livestock farming in that country
(Van Niekerk, 2010). A telephone survey of the 5 main small
livestock producing provinces estimated a total direct loss of
R 1 390 453 062 per year, equivalent to 11.66 Food and Agri-
culture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Livestock
Units per farm per year (LSUs: A North American cow is 1
LSU, a sub-Saharan cow is equal to 0.5 LSUs and a goat or
sheep equal to 0.1 LSUs - Chilonda & Otte, 2006). A com-
plicating factor in this number is that many farmers do not
keep good records of their losses and typically there is no
way to distinguish between reliable, documented data and an
exaggerated estimate. It should also be kept in mind that the
potential income for the farmer is actually the percentage of
offspring per females and the real impact of predators should
be measured by their impact on this number, rather than
simply the number of losses. In Namibia, there has been lim-
ited farmer surveys of North-Central Namibia (Marker, Mills
& Macdonald, 2003), with an emphasis on cheetahs, an area
within North-Central Namibia around the Waterberg Na-
tional Park (Stein, Fuller, Damery, Sievert & Marker, 2010),
looking at leopard predation, and a country-wide survey of

1
2 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER
Figure 1. Map showing commercial farming area of Namibia in white. The light grey areas are communal farming land and
the protected areas in the West consist mostly of the Namib desert.
N
commercial farmers (Lindsey, Havemann, Lines, Palazy et
al., 2013), with an emphasis on farmer attitudes and determ-
inants of tolerance for predators. Their estimated average
loss per farm varied between 10.65 LSU/farm/year and 1.75
LSU/farm/year (See Table 1 on the next page). This wide
range of estimates showed the need for a country-wide sur-
vey in Namibia
1. to compare depredation losses to other causes of live-
stock loss,
2. to estimate the total costs per year to the country due to
livestock predation,
3. to determine if there are evidence of conflict hotspots
in the country and
4. to investigate the methods currently used by farmers to
protect their livestock against depredation in terms of effect-
iveness.
Methods
Questionnaires were sent out to all 2500 members of the
Namibian Agricultural Union (NAU) as an insert in the May
Legend
Survey Farms
Commercial farmland
Commercial conservancies
Towns
Protected areas
Communal conservancies
Namibia
100 0 100 200 300 400 km
2015 edition of their monthly magazine, AgriForum. A short
article explaining the research and asking for information
from farmers was placed in the magazine. The question-
naire had the option to be filled in anonymously; it was made
clear that no personal data would be published without the
permission of the farmer and that the results of the research
would be shared with the NAU. There was also the option of
filling in an online version of the questionnaire or download-
ing the questionnaires from a web site. With only about 66%
of NAU members having an e-mail address (Wallie Roux,
personal communication), this was considered as the most
cost-effective method to reach all the farmers in the country.
Because farmers are notorious for a low response rate (aver-
age of only 25% to NAU questionnaires - Wallie Roux, per-
sonal communication), the ideal would have been personal
interviews with all the farmers, but the logistics and size of
Namibia made this impossible within the financial and time
constraints of the project.
To estimate how accurate farmers were in their responses,
the time since last livestock count was used (or if they ex-
 NAMIBIAN FARMER-PREDATOR CONFLICT 3

Table 1
Depredation livestock losses recorded from previous farmer surveys in Namibia. Depredation losses given in terms of FAO
livestock units per farm per year.
LSU / farm
Study Period Area Notes
/year
North- Farmers reporting
1991-
Marker et al., Central 10.65 LSU cheetah problems, All
1993
2003 Namibia livestock
North-
1991- 4.55 LSU Farmers without cheetah
Marker et al., Central
1993 (n=241) problems, (All)
2003 Namibia
North- Farmers reporting
1993-
Marker et al., Central 3.75 LSU cheetah problems,
1999
2003 Namibia All livestock
North-
1993- 1.81 LSU Farmers without cheetah
Marker et al., Central
1999 (n=241) problems, (All)
2003 Namibia
Around
2005-
Stein et al., 2010 Waterberg 1.75 (n=19) Leopard losses only
2006
NP
2010- Country- 1.82
Lindsey et al., Leopard losses only
2011? wide (n=250)
2013

plicitly said that it was only an estimate). Similarly, for
livestock losses they could fill in both documented livestock
losses and estimated livestock losses (e.g. when no remains
were found and it was assumed that predators removed the
whole carcass). This was to address the methodological flaw
of previous studies that did not differentiate between those
farmers who documented losses accurately and those who
simply estimated their losses.
The questionnaires were translated from Afrikaans and
entered into a spreadsheet, from where it could be imported
into QGIS (QGIS-Development-Team, 2017) and R (Kerns,
2010; Peng, 2016). Where farmers only completed parts of
the questionnaires, only those questions that they did answer
were included in the results, so for a specific question it
would exclude those farmers who did not answer that ques-
tion when calculating averages. Since the data was not nor-
mally distributed (p<0.001 using the Anderson-Darling nor-
mality test), resampling (randomization) statistics (Simon,
1997) were used instead of parametric tests. For each anti-
predation method reported by the farmers, the null hypo-
thesis was that the method would have no effect (i.e. no
less livestock losses for the group of farms using a specific
method than what would be shown by a random redistribu-
tion of the farms between the two groups); the alternative hy-
pothesis being that the specific method result in less livestock
losses compared to farmers not using the method (than can be
expected from a random assignment of the farms to the two
groups using resampling without replacement). One-tailed
tests were used because it was hypothesised that an effective
method would lead to a decrease in livestock losses (and not
just a difference). Where the "effort" of the method could
be represented by an actual number (instead of just the two
groups of treatment and control), a resampling version of a
regression test was used, with the null hypothesis being that
the observed slope of the regression will not be greater than
that obtained by a random reassignment of the farms; the
alternative being that a similar or greater negative regression
slope has a chance of less than 0.05 to be produced by a ran-
dom reassignment of the farms to the treatment or control
group. The raw data (without any personal information) and
basic r scripts used for the resampling, are attached.
Results
General
The response rate was even lower than expected (2.08%),
with only 52 responses, 3 using the online questionnaire and
49 the paper questionnaire, and only 42 responses that com-
pleted the questionnaire in full. However, the responses were
distributed well over the whole commercial farming area of
Namibia (see map 2 on the following page) and appear to
be a fairly representative sample of Namibian commercial
farmers with 34 of the 104 farmers associations being rep-
resented (Lindsey, Havemann, Lines, Palazy et al., 2013) in
13 districts.
Contrary to expectations, only 9 of the 52 responses
(17.3%) chose to fill in the questionnaire anonymously.
Thirty-three farmers (63.5%) were situated in the traditional
4 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER

Figure 2. Map of all the farms that filled in surveys. The anonymous responses are in the correct district and of the correct
size, but not necessarily in the exact position. Two of the farms where right on the border of the country in the East and South
respectively.

cattle farming part of Namibia (Windhoek and Northward)
and 19 (36.5%) were from the South. Commercial cattle
farmers (defined as farming with 200 or more head of cattle)
were only 23 (44.23%), although 40 farmers (77%) had some
cattle. Twenty-two farmers (42.3%) farmed with game, but
only 13 (25%) used trophy hunting as a source of income.
Nineteen (36.5%) surveys were from the South, historically
used primarily for small livestock farming and 19 farmers
were primarily small livestock farmers (defined as having at
least 200 does or at least 400 ewes) while 27 (51.9%) of the
farmers had some small livestock. Nineteen (36.5%) of the
farmers described their farming enterprise as being mixed
farming with only one farmer (1.9%) also having some crop
cultivation.
Most of the responding farmers (34 = 65%) could only
estimate their livestock numbers and did not have data from
recent counts. Farming can be categorised on a scale from
intensive to extensive. The practicality of various anti-
predation methods available to farmers, may be limited by
how intensive the farm can be managed. There is no uni-
versal classification system, however. We defined intensive
livestock farming systems as those where all livestock are
seen or handled at least daily, medium intensive systems as
those where the livestock owner sees all his livestock at least
once per week, medium extensive systems as those where
the farmer sees all his livestock at least once per month and
extensive farming as those where the farmer sees or handles
all his livestock less than once per month. Non-surprisingly,
the vast majority of farming was extensive with only 3 farm-
ers (5.8%) managing their farms relatively intensive (count-
ing livestock at least weekly), 9 farmers (17.3%) medium ex-
tensive (counting livestock monthly) and 40 farmers (76.9%)
counting all their livestock less than once per month. The
mean total farm size was 9 344.68 ha, with the smallest
farm 4 339 ha and the largest 22 000 ha. Livestock stocking
densities varied between 0.00114 LSU/ha (=11.386 ha/LSU)
and 0.0878 LSU/ha (177.193 ha/LSU) with a mean stocking
density of 0.0301 LSU/ha (88.92 ha/LSU) (Table 2). This
 NAMIBIAN FARMER-PREDATOR CONFLICT
Table 2
Livestock per farm. The minimum calving percentage ap-
pears to be an outlier due to drought. The offspring per-
centage can be considered as an indication of the relative
gross profitability (before expenses) of the livestock species
in Namibia.
Livestock Average number Off-spring percentage
species per farm (young/female)
Cattle 404.9 (n=39, 67.2% (n=39,
range=2–1500) range=2%–100%)
Goats 232.8 (n=18, 95.5% (n=18,
range=40–604) range=39%–159%)
Sheep 1633 (n=17, 72.7% (n=17,
range=6–5100) range=40%–110%)
wide variation in livestock numbers underline the different
types of farm management options available to farmers.
Looking at the reported predator observations, it is clear
that jackals and caracals have the widest distribution, fol-
lowed by leopards and cheetahs. The observations included
seeing the predator, hearing it, or finding signs (tracks or
scat) of the predator. It can be assumed that the identific-
ation of tracks were not always accurate. Other carnivores
that were reported on farms include brown hyaenas (Hyaena
brunnae), spotted hyaenas (Crocuta crocuta), African wild
dogs (Lycaon pictus), lions (Panthera leo), African wildcats
(Felis silvestris lybica), Cape foxes (Vulpes chama), Servals
(Leptailurus serval) and Aardwolves (Proteles cristata). Al-
though strictly speaking not a carnivore or predator, baboons
(Papio ursinus) were also reported by some farmers who con-
sider them as predators on young small livestock.
Causes of livestock loss
On average, cattle farmers lost 17.7 cattle per year (5.1%)
to disease, injuries, drought, theft, predators and other
causes, including calves falling into aardvark holes, snake
bites, calving problems and abortions, lightning, and poison-
ous plants. Predation was by far the single greatest cause of
cattle losses (Table 3). Sheep farmers lost a mean of 70.9
sheep per year (11.9%) to disease, injuries, drought, theft,
predators and other causes, mostly poisonous plants. Like
for cattle, predation is responsible for more than half of all
sheep losses. On average 10.4 goats (13.3%) were lost per
year to disease, injuries, drought, theft, depredation and other
causes, including falling in rock crevices and simply going
missing. For all livestock losses the data shows a long tail
to the right, indicating that the majority of farmers had rel-
atively few losses while a few farmers had very high losses.
The highest cattle losses on a single farm were 21.9% (due
to drought), the highest sheep losses were 40.1% (half to
drought, the rest to depredation, theft and disease) and the
highest goat losses were a massive 55% (of which 60% to
5
Table 3
Relative contribution of different causes of livestock losses
s
ecie
k sp
n
stoc
atio
t
se
ugh
ries
a
er
ft
Pred
Dise
Live
Inju
Dro
The
Oth
Cattle 57.9% 18.2% 11% 4.5% 3.6% 4.8%
Goats 37.6% 28.3% 32% 0.4% 0.4% 1.5%
Sheep 58.9% 6.2% 22.4% 11.3% 0.3% 1%
depredation and 40% to drought).
Livestock depredation losses
Only 11 responses (21.2%) actually documented their
losses while a further 5 (9.6%) partially documented their
losses. Depredation of livestock (Table 4 on the next page)
demonstrates the difference between documented losses and
estimated depredation losses. The annual cattle losses per
farm varied between 0 and a documented 35 calves (6.4% of
total cattle herd, 66.7% of calves), with the highest undocu-
mented estimated loss per farm being 60 calves (14% of total
herd, and 50% of calves). Leopards were responsible for
most cattle kills, followed by cheetahs. A number of farmers
reported jackals attacking newly-born calves; and one farmer
reported jackals killing 5 calves older than a month. One
farmer on the Botswana border reported 3 calves being killed
by lions. For farms with sheep, the losses varied between
0 and a documented high of 360 lambs (10 to caracal, 350
to jackal) with a highest percentage of 25.5% of the total
herd and 72.7% of lambs lost to predators. Goat farmers
lost between 0 and a documented high of 70 kids to jackal
(35% of total goat herd, 100% of kids). Jackals were by
far responsible for most small livestock kills. If we include
both the estimated and the documented losses, an average of
9.2 LSUs of all livestock species were killed by predators
per farm per year. If we assume that the sampled farmers
are actually representative of all ~3500 commercial livestock
farmers in Namibia, this translates to 32 200 LSUs (= 64 400
cattle or 322 000 small livestock) per year lost to predation.
Depredation hotspots?
Predation losses due to predators were significantly less
for cattle than for small livestock (p < 0.001). No clear de-
predation "hotspots" could be identified from the survey data
(Figure 3 on page 8), and it would appear that some farms
in most districts had higher depredation losses compared to
others in the same areas. As can be expected, when including
the estimated losses, predation losses are almost double the
documented numbers, with 37 respondents documenting all
6 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER

their losses, 10 documenting their losses partially (i.e. only

for some species or documented some losses, but estimated
Table 4
that there were more undocumented losses as well), and only
Average documented depredation loss per predator species
1 respondent estimating all his predation losses without any
and estimated total depredation losses. Other predators
documentation whatsoever.
refer almost exclusively to brown Hyaena, with one report
of losses to lions. For each livestock species, the average
Effectiveness of methods
total predator losses as percentage of potential income (off-
spring) are given in brackets. In contrast to the previous study by Marker, Kraus, Barnett
st

and Hurlbut (1996), the density of game (wild prey) on

k Lo

farms, could not be shown to have a statistically signific-

ed
stoc

pard

etah

ant effect on livestock losses, although there was a slightly

mat
al

al
c

er

l
negative correlation (-0.05) between game density and live-
Cara
Live

Jack

Tota
Che
Leo

Esti
Oth
stock depredation losses (LSU). All responding farmers ex-
Calves 2.0 0.47 0.07 0.29 0.11 3.51 6.4 cept two, had at least some game on their farm and 28.9%
<1 of them were members of a conservancy (although 40% of
month these reported that their conservancy was non-functional).
Calves 0.33 1.22 0.0 0.11 0.27 0.56 2.49 However, members of conservancies had significantly less
1-6 depredation losses than non-members (p < 0.05) when con-
months sidering only confirmed losses, which could indicate that
Calves 0.11 0.11 0 0 0.11 0.04 0.38 conservancies with higher game diversity, also resulted in
7-12 less predation losses. Indeed, while the effect was very weak
months (correlation of -0.25 and a negative slope of only -0.000123),
Cattle 0.29 0 0 0 0.09 0.11 0.49 the number of game (prey) species on a farm (species rich-
>12 ness) had a statistically significant negative effect on live-
months stock depredation (p < 0.05) (see Table 5 on the next page).
All 0.68 0.47 0.03 0.20 0.14 1.06 (9.7%) Seasonal breeding had no significant effect on depreda-
Cattle tion losses with 66% of cattle farmers, 72% of goat farmers
(% of and 61% of sheep farmers implementing seasonal breeding.
calves) Farms using predator-proof fencing (including jackal-proof
Lambs 0.0 0.0 4.4 31.64 0.64 15.52 52.4 fencing, electrified fencing and special camps for young live-
0-6 stock) had a higher mean livestock depredation rate than
months those with only livestock fencing. This was the opposite
Sheep 0.0 0.72 2.48 19.08 0.0 5.48 27.76 of the expected effect, but not statistically significant. Most
>6 of the farms in the Southern part of the country had jackal-
months proof fencing (20) and 10 farmers had electrified fencing, all
All 0 0.36 3.44 25.46 0.32 10.5 (16.7%) South of Windhoek. Keeping vulnerable young livestock in
Sheep small camps close to the farm homestead was used by 18
(% of farmers all over the country, but it had no significant effect
lambs) on livestock losses. Keeping lambs in kraal during the day
Kids 0.15 0.50 1.05 4.7 0.0 1.7 8.1 led to a significant decrease in total depredation losses (p <
0-6 0.005, mean LSU lost without kraaling: 172.7; with kraal-
months ing: 7.9), but because of the small sample of only 3 sheep
Goats 0.1 0.05 0.5 0.65 0.0 0.05 1.35 farmers using this method (21%), this result might not be as
>6 useful and it was not significant as a percentage of all sheep.
months For goats (used by 33% of goat farmers) and cattle (used
All 0.13 0.28 0.78 2.68 0 0.88 (13.9%) by 13.8% of cattle farmers) kraaling by day had no signi-
Goats ficant effect on depredation losses. Keeping all livestock in
(% of a kraal at night (used by 28.9% of farmers) had no signi-
kids) ficant effect on depredation losses, and for goats and sheep
LSU 1.29 0.95 0.45 3.06 0.3 3.15 9.20 could even result in greater losses than free-roaming live-
/farm stock. This effect could be explained by the common surplus
killing ("overkill") phenomenon when feline predators enters
a kraal at night and many livestock are killed in a single in-
 NAMIBIAN FARMER-PREDATOR CONFLICT 7

Table 5
Human-wildlife conflict from two perspectives: Livestock lost to predation per ha top, predators killed by farmers per farm
bottom.

Legend
LSU/ha lost to predation
0.0000 - 0.0007
0.0007 - 0.0014
0.0014 - 0.0020
0.0020 - 0.0027
0.0027 - 0.0034
0.0034 - 0.0041
0.0041 - 0.0047
Districts
Town
Protected areas
Namibia
Commercial farmlands
Commercial conservancies
N
100 0 100 200 300 400 km

Legend
Predators Killed
0-0
0-2
2-3
3-6
6 - 15
15 - 32
32 - 111
District
Towns
Elevations and Relief
Protected areas
Namibia
Commercial farmlands
N Commercial conservancies

100 0 100 200 300 400 km

8 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER

Figure 3. Map showing the total livestock predation losses per farm in LSUs

Legend
LSU/farm lost to predation
0.0 - 7.4
7.4 - 14.7
14.7 - 22.1
22.1 - 29.4
29.4 - 36.8
Districts
Town
Protected areas

N Namibia
Commercial farmlands
Elevations and Relief

100 0 100 200 300 400 km

cident. Livestock guarding dogs, used by 15% of farmers, against depredation, this method could not be shown to have
had no significant effect on small livestock depredation. The a significant influence on depredation numbers.
11.5% farmers with herders did not have significantly less
Only 2 respondents (4.8%) actively hunted leopards, 1
depredation losses compared to those without herders. Mov-
hunted cheetahs (2.4%), 9 hunted caracals (21.4%), 15
ing livestock to avoid depredation did not have any signi-
hunted jackals (35.7%) and 3 (7.1%) hunted other predat-
ficant effect on the numbers of livestock loss to predators.
ors, including African wild cat and brown hyaena. Jackals
However, most farmers that used this method, only moved
were often hunted by night, using spotlights and sound to call
livestock in response to actual losses, and not pro-actively.
them. Only one farmer (2.4%) hunted leopards using dogs
About 25% of the farmers used donkeys as guarding animals
while another farmer hunted caracals and jackals with dogs.
against predators, mostly in the North, but with no signific-
Some 7.1% (3 respondents respectively) paid hunters to kill
ant difference in their depredation livestock losses compared
leopards, cheetahs, caracals and other predators, including
to farmers without donkeys. Almost half (46%) of farmers
brown hyaena and African wild cats, 10 farmers (23.8%)
selected female livestock animals who were able to protect
paid hunters to kill jackals. One farmer claimed that a hired
their offspring until weaning age, but it could not be shown
hunter shot 30 jackals in a period of 2 nights. A number of
to have a significant effect on depredation losses compared
farmers did not actively hunt predators, but would shoot them
to those who did not report selecting for this protective in-
on sight when encountering them by chance. Two farmers
stinct. Only about 18% of cattle farmers allowed their live-
(4.8%) killed leopards in this manner, 5 (11.9%) killed chee-
stock horns to grow for protection, and it did not appear to
tahs, 3 (7.1%) killed caracals, 11 (26.2%) killed jackals and
have any significant advantage in preventing livestock de-
3 (7.1%) killed other predators opportunistically, mostly hy-
predation. While 32.7% of farmers made use of the nat-
aenas. In one case a perceived danger to human lives possibly
ural protective behaviour of livestock in large herds to protect
led to 2 leopards being killed close to the homestead. A few
 NAMIBIAN FARMER-PREDATOR CONFLICT
farmers would only actively hunt predators in retaliation for
livestock depredation, with 4 killing leopards in response to
losses (9.5%), 1 (2.4%) killing cheetah, 2 (4.8%) killing jack-
als and 1 (2.4%) killing brown hyaena. Some farmers only
killed predators during the calving season. Surprisingly, only
a single farmer used gin traps (foot traps) to catch and kill
leopards and cheetahs, respectively, while 5 farmers (11.9%)
would use it to catch caracals and 8 (19%) to catch jackals.
Three farmers also used gin traps to catch African wild cats
and brown hyaenas. Eleven farmers (26.2%) used cage traps
to catch leopards, 4 used them to catch cheetahs (9.5%), 8
(19%) caught caracals in cage traps, 3 succeeded in catching
jackals in cage traps (7.2%) and a further 5 (11.9%) used
cage traps for catching other predators like African wild cats
and brown hyaenas. About 4.8% of responding farmers used
poison of some kind against leopards, cheetahs and caracals,
and 5 (11.9%) used poison against jackals, while only one
farmer used poison to kill brown hyaenas. One brown hyaena
and 1 cheetah were removed by the Ministry of Environment
and Tourism (MET). On average 1.039 leopards, 0.442 chee-
tahs, 1.173 caracals, 9.519 jackals and 0.96 brown hyaenas
or wild cats were removed or killed per livestock farm per
year. A number of farmers did not kill any predators on their
land at all.
There was a significant positive correlation between the
total numbers of livestock killed by leopards and the total
numbers of leopards killed by farmers (p < 0.05). Similarly,
there was a significant positive correlation between the total
numbers of livestock killed by cheetahs and the total num-
bers of cheetahs killed by farmers (p < 0.01), similarly for
caracals (p < 0.05) and jackals (p < 0.01). However, there
was no similar correlation between livestock depredation by
hyaenas and them being killed by farmers. Overall, a signi-
ficant positive correlation between total numbers of livestock
killed by predators and the total number of predators killed
in turn by farmers, could be seen (p < 0.05). About 71.2%
of the farmers (39) killed predators as part of their predator
management attempts.
The majority of farmers did not know what their methods
for preventing livestock depredation were costing them per
year, and only 15 could give a rough estimate of their costs,
which averaged about N$70 392.86 and ranged between
N$1000.00 per month for some extra labour, to N$400
000.00 for electrification of fences. Almost 70% of the farm-
ers (29) were willing to change their farming methods if it
would result in less livestock losses or conflict with predat-
ors.
Discussion
The unexpectedly low response rate means that the res-
ults of this survey should be used with caution. Specifically,
not too much should be concluded about the effectiveness
of the different methods based only on this survey. There is
9
also the danger of bias, since it is possible that those farmers
with more predation problems were more likely to respond.
On the other hand, many farmers simply neglect to read the
AgriForum magazine (personal observation) and this might
be an adequate explanation for the few responses. Another
possible reason for the low farmer response rate is illustrated
in some comments, showing their frustration with the results
of past research:
“Still holding out and bearing with cheetahs,
but their numbers are becoming too much (not
threatened) and losses more. D-day is approach-
ing. Even game numbers are drastically de-
creasing. My opinion is that the organizations
working for the "conservation" of cheetahs, only
work for their foreign investors. Why are anim-
als that are caught in cages, simply released out
of sight on the same farm? Somewhere some-
body is lying horribly about "threatened" num-
bers, and that for the sake of money. Between ra-
bies and cheetahs our kudu population has been
almost exterminated.”
and
“Do you know how many students have already
been here over the years with the same form and
nothing is being done? We are wasting our time
filling in forms.”
Other farmers were more positive.
“We have to try farming with our natural en-
emies.”
“Do not want to kill predators!”
“1. With leopards I only catch the problem an-
imal, using the caught carcass as bait. 2. With
jackals you can give me advice.”
One possible way to overcome this low response rate in fu-
ture would be personal interviews, preferably at farmer days
or events where a personal relationship with farmers can be
built. Feedback from HWC research should also be presen-
ted at such events, instead of just published in scientific
journals (which are never read by farmers). Currently, many
farmers complained that they do not know what happens
with the information that they supply to researchers (personal
communication).
Most conservancies were situated in the northern half of
the country (see Figure 1 on page 2) where the numbers
of natural game species on farms are also higher. In con-
trast to most trophy hunting game farms, members of con-
servancies usually do not keep most of their game inside
game-fenced camps. It is thus interesting that members of
conservancies had significantly lower livestock depredation
10 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER
losses than non-members. The reason for this is unclear, but
conservancy membership had a significant positive effect on
wildlife species richness, which also had a significant effect
on livestock depredation. It does appear that a higher prey
species richness led to lower livestock predation contra the
study by Khorozyan, Ghoddousi, Soofi and Waltert (2015),
which found that below a specific wild prey threshold density
predators started to kill more livestock. This can also partly
explain the reason why Namibian farmers were more toler-
ant of predators when biodiversity on their land was higher
(Lindsey, Havemann, Lines, Palazy et al., 2013). Further re-
search on this point would be very enlightening. A number
of farmers had concerns that predators killed game species
in addition to livestock, and this could be a further cause of
conflict when farmers within conservancies depend on game
for a larger portion of their income (cf. Lindsey, Havemann,
Lines, Price et al., 2013).
One slightly surprising result was that none of the other
anti-predation methods used by Namibian farmers had a sig-
nificant effect on livestock depredation. There are 2 possible
reasons for this and these results should not be used to simply
dismiss these methods as ineffective:
1. The small sample size and low response rates unfor-
tunately limits the usefulness of this survey for evaluating
the different methods, Some methods only being used with
certain livestock (e.g. dogs only used with sheep or goats),
made the available samples for testing even smaller than the
total number of completed questionnaires.
2. Additionally, some methods would work well in some
circumstances, but can be ineffective or even counter-
productive if incorrectly implemented. E.g. fences (and
kraals), which are supposed to protect livestock, sometimes
result in “overkill” or a killing frenzy by feline predators
when the prey cannot run away as they are cornered against
the fence. Fences often do not stop feline predators like leo-
pards or caracals and are often actually used by predators as
part of their hunting strategy. As reported by one farmer,
“Initially the leopard tried to catch calves late in the after-
noons at the cattle posts. Nguni cows’ horns were helping
then. Leopards have changed their strategy since, and now
hunt in the mornings between 5 and 6 where the cows are
sleeping against the fence or in the corner of a camp. There
he grabs the calf and pulls it through underneath the fence
where the cow cannot do anything to it. Clever, hey?”. Like-
wise, none of the supposed Livestock Guarding Dogs in the
responses were large dogs like the Anatolian shepherd or
Kangal, but were all small or medium sized. There is little
reason to suppose that small dogs would keep away a pred-
ator like a leopard, for instance, when dogs themselves (like
jackals, Bothma & Le Riche, 1994) are often leopard prey.
Similarly, at least one farmer in the Windhoek district has
complained that donkeys used to work well when cheetahs
were the major danger to his livestock, but that in the past
few years when “leopards moved in, the donkey experiment
doesn’t seem to work any-more!!”. Seasonal breeding can be
useful to reduce livestock depredation by limiting livestock
as a food source for predators through most of the year, but
can also backfire when for example small livestock are man-
aged to have their young in the same season that the natural
prey of the jackals (springbok) would have had their young
and are then used as a convenient replacement to provide the
extra nutritional requirement of jackal pups (who are born
in the same season). Another important factor when con-
sidering anti-predation methods, is that some methods work
together and might be effective against livestock depredation
when used together, but not when considered alone.
A follow-up, detailed survey that gets data from at least 4
times as many farmers, but with an emphasis on the cost-
effectiveness of the different methods, would be needed to get
a better idea of the real effectiveness of the different methods.
What is encouraging, is that about half of all the respondents
indicated that they would be willing to participate in further
research about predators on farmlands.
In spite of this limitation, three major trends that are im-
portant to keep in mind for future farmer-predator conflict
management, became clear from this survey:
1. There is a discrepancy between confirmed, documented
livestock depredation numbers and farmer estimates of live-
stock depredation, with estimated losses usually (but not al-
ways) higher than the documented losses. However, this dif-
ference is not only because of bad bookkeeping by some
farmers, but also because some kinds of depredation (e.g.
jackals who take the whole carcass of lambs and kids to their
den for their young) leave no or little trace for the farmer to
identify, while still having a major effect on production.
2. Although relative less important for goats than for the
other livestock species, depredation is currently the major
cause of livestock losses on these Namibian farms.
3. While the average losses to predators as a percentage of
potential income were relatively low (9.7% of calves, 13.9%
of goat kids and 16.7% of lambs), there were a few farms on
which these losses were up to 100% of the potential income
in the past year. The percentage of total livestock lost to
predators was 2.48% of cattle, which compares well to the
study by Thorn, Green, Dalerum, Bateman and Scott (2012)
of 2.77%, but the 4.23% of goats and 6.65% of sheep was
higher. The average of 9.2 LSUs lost per farm per year, was
higher than most previously published results for Namibia,
with only the 1991-1993 “cheetah problem” farmers of the
Marker et al. (2003) study being higher, but still lower than
the 11.66 LSU/farm/annum of the South African study by
Van Niekerk (2010).
One encouraging result of the survey was that almost 70%
of the respondent farmers were willing to change their man-
agement practices if it would result in less livestock losses.
Similarly, a study by Rust (2016) showed that about 66% of
 NAMIBIAN FARMER-PREDATOR CONFLICT
farmers prefer non-lethal methods to prevent livestock de-
predation.
Some of the reasons given by those farmers who were un-
willing to change, include the following:
1. They see no alternative or do not believe an alternative
will be effective. (E.g. “How? Moving livestock is not al-
ways possible. No methods. Come catch cheetahs so they
will become less and reduce losses. My neighbour does it
for me. Hunts with dogs: Cheetahs, Kudus, Oryx, Warthogs.
Report to Nature Conservation & Police, but they do nothing;
just ask where the meat is.”)
2. Their current method is effective and working well
enough or considered as the best option. (“Not a insurmount-
able problem. Cage traps are working well at the moment.”;
“Cannot. Most effective.” “From years of experience it is
best to hunt by night with spot lights. Poison and gin traps
does not work, not even with people claiming themselves as
experts in their use. Our jackals all have doctorate degrees in
being clever. They learn from the two-legged jackals.”)
3. They are already investing heavily in infrastructure,
specifically electrified fences. (“Already in the process of
electrifying fences.”)
4. Some were loosing high numbers of game and killing
predators were seen as the only option. (“Lost 350 Springbok
over 3-4 year period to cheetahs. Hunt.”)
5. They considered their current methods as being the
most sustainable. (“Ideal sheep with sustainable grazing
methods. Sustainable for whole ecosystem!”)
6. Some farmers cited high labour costs and labour le-
gislation as reasons. (“Tried leaving horns on cattle. Gov-
ernment antagonism against farmers makes employing extra
workers a last option.”)
7. A lack of time requirements is mentioned by one
farmer. (“Not time consuming and can be carried out in con-
junction with security (theft) patrols.”)
On the other hand, this survey also showed that 71% of the
farmers still used lethal methods to deal with livestock de-
predation. The most popular method was proactive hunting
(mostly for jackals by night), followed by cage traps (mostly
leopards) and opportunistic shooting (mostly jackals), fol-
lowed by paying hunters to kill predators (jackals mostly),
and then foot (gin) traps (mostly for jackals). Worryingly,
the use of poison is the 5th most popular method of killing
predators (mostly jackals), followed by reactive hunting after
predation of livestock (mostly leopards), while hunting with
dogs (for leopards, caracals and jackals) and removing by
MET (for cheetahs and brown hyaena) were rarely used.
This suggests that the levels of conflict between predators
and farmers are still high, as is also shown by the relatively
high percentages of livestock losses. What are we to make
of the significant positive correlation between livestock de-
predation and predators killed? It either means that killing
predators is ineffective as a management method (Teich-
11
man, Cristescu & Darimont, 2016), or more likely, and in
agreement with Ogada, Woodroffe, Oguge and Frank (2003),
Marker et al. (2003), Lindsey, Havemann, Lines, Palazy et
al. (2013) and Thorn, Green, Marnewick and Scott (2015),
that it was higher levels of livestock losses that caused more
retaliatory and intended preventative killing of predators.
Possibly both mechanisms are at work simultaneously, with
farmers killing predators when they experience high pred-
ation levels, but ending up in a vicious circle (Snow, 2009),
since killing of predators has been shown to sometimes result
in higher livestock losses in the following year (Conradie &
Piesse, 2013; Nattrass & Conradie, 2013).
The uneven distribution of livestock depredation, and the
relatively insignificant effects of the different anti-predation
methods, means that there are nothing obvious to distinguish
those farmers with the highest livestock losses. The small
livestock farmers with highest depredation losses, all killed
high numbers of predators, but this was not true for the cattle
farmers with the highest losses. About half of them had a
low number of prey species on their land and most did not
belong to a conservancy. Overall there is no clear indication
from the data of why these specific farms had such levels of
predation compared to other farms and the answer possibly
lies in some ecological factors that could not be captured by
a questionnaire (e.g. one farmer complaining that his neigh-
bour shoots all the kudus).
Conclusions
Coming back to the original aims of the survey, 1) it
showed that predation was the single largest cause of live-
stock losses on commercial Namibian farms. 2) Livestock
depredation is therefore a real and widespread issue for Nam-
ibian livestock farmers that needs to be addressed properly
for any realistic chance at the future survival of currently
threatened predators on farmlands. This survey also helped
to clarify the fact that there will always be a difference
between documented, confirmed livestock depredation num-
bers and the actual numbers that farmers loose to predators.
Additionally, it should be clear that not all farmers are able
to be equally accurate in their reporting and this should be
taken into account in any future research by explicitly differ-
entiating between documented, accurate data and estimates.
3) There was little evidence of predator conflict hotspots on
commercial farms in Namibia. 4) Of the surveyed meth-
ods, it seems like the best future solutions would incorporate
some way of increasing prey biodiversity on farmlands. In
addition to possibly less livestock losses, this will generally
increase ecosystem stability (Cadotte, Dinnage & Tilman,
2012), benefiting the farming enterprise indirectly as well.
With about 70% of farmers using primarily lethal methods
to attempt reducing livestock depredation, and an average of
9.2 LSUs (3.9%) lost per farm annually, it should be clear
that current methods are not addressing the human-wildlife
12 LUYT, LESLIE, HUI, MARKER
conflict adequately. While about 70% of farmers are will-
ing to change their management if they can be shown more
cost-effective farming methods to prevent livestock depreda-
tion, many of them also suggest that they do not know how
to improve matters and feel like they are fighting a loosing
battle. With farmers having little idea about the costs of the
different methods they used, it would appear that there is a
real need for cost-effective methods that result in higher prey
biodiversity, lower livestock losses and more sustainable eco-
systems on Namibian farmlands. Sharing the result of this
research project widely with both participating farmers and
the wider livestock producers community in Namibia, should
be an important first step to break down barriers and farmer
frustrations.
Future research should focus on the cost-effectiveness of
the different methods by which farmers attempt to protect
their livestock. The sample size needs to be big enough
so that the effectiveness of the methods can be pulled apart
and analysed per livestock species, per predator species and
per ecosystem attributes like vegetation type, topography,
heterogeneity or homogeneity of the terrain, availability of
drinking water and seasonal changes. It should specifically
aim to identify those ecological or other factors that cause
some farms to have such disproportionately high livestock
losses. Secondly, farmers should be encouraged and helped
to keep record of the costs of their predation management
techniques. These implementation and maintenance costs of
the various methods should be used together with its utility
(probability effectiveness) for a proper cost-benefit analysis
of the various methods and these results should be widely
disseminated among farmers afterwards.
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