Maned wolf and farmers: transforming enemies into allies in Brazil

The threatened maned wolf is the largest Neotropical canid. In Brazil, the conversion of savannas into pasturelands and agriculture fields has been considered the main risk for the species. Population reduction is also... [ view full abstract ]

The threatened maned wolf is the largest Neotropical canid. In Brazil, the conversion of savannas into pasturelands and agriculture fields has been considered the main risk for the species. Population reduction is also accounted through road killings and hunting. Despite the persecution of individuals due to poultry depredation, there are cultural beliefs that they may attack their dogs, calves, sheep, and children. The negative view of the maned wolf is exaggerated especially in rural areas and this leads into severe conflicts. Most of farms raise chicken and ducks in a free range management. This lead to increasing of predation and consecutively of maned wolf persecution. The final purpose of the project is to reduce individuals hunting by improving the relationship between people and the maned wolf by involving the whole society in its conservation. We aimed to investigate the perception of rural community towards the species, including its impact on home economy and evaluate the effectiveness of fencing the aviary stock. Questionnaires were applied in the Serra da Canastra region, southeastern Brazil. The information obtained was used for the species impact analysis and a conflict zoning developed through the Species Distribution Modeling methodology. The map produced indicated the critical zones for intervention through the building of chicken coops, education practices and economic incentives. Our study showed that 42% of chicken predation were caused by maned wolves, while the remaining were caused by other predators. We built a total number of 140 chicken coops in a total area of approximately 3000 km². The effectiveness of this preventive method was evaluated from the monitoring of each property in terms of new attacks and the presence of monitored animals. Economic benefits such as increasing of chicken production and selling of eggs in local market transformed a long lasting conflict into a positive acceptance of the species that brought new opportunities. Thus, the approaches applied together raised awareness, increased tolerance and improved the perception towards maned wolves. The hunting of no specimen has been reported since 2016, indicating a total suppression of maned wolf persecution in the region.