“How to live with wildlife” is a current and an urgent issue as a result of the ongoing worldwide increase in conflicts between humans and wild animals. Cohabitation between humans and wild animals, as a suggested alternative to permanent control of wild animals and the creation of short-term solutions to human-wildlife conflicts, requires a rethinking of prevailing wildlife management practices. Seeking insight into cohabitation and cohabitation strategies is an underexplored area. This research attempts to advance insight into wildlife management practices that deal with human-wildlife conflicts and explore ways in which cohabitation might be achieved. Cohabitation in this research pertains to an emphasis on relations and interactions between humans and wild animals. Through this relational approach, including the use of such concepts as mutual multisensory communication, and mutual affective learning, the concept shifts attention to the ongoing interactions and the complex of activities that take place between human, wild animal, and landscape. The investigation draws on an interpretive multispecies research approach. The methodological challenge of this research was to include and account for wild animal presences in managing human-wildlife conflict situations. Therefore the research has employed a multispecies-ethnography, in which the emphasis was on human-wild animal interactions. The cases this research draws on were, respectively, black bear management on the Colorado Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, USA, and wild boar management at the Veluwe, the Netherlands. Data collection consisted of in-depth interviews, participant-observations, focus groups, and documents. The empirical cases illustrate that a management approach based on controlling wild animals and separating them from humans is no longer tenable and management based solely on models and quantitative data has proved to be a too simple approach in managing human-wild animal interactions and, in addition, is often contested. Specifically, the taken-for-granted acceptance of particular categories when establishing management strategies, and the persistence of management based on rigid boundaries and universal assumptions are problematic in the practice of managing human-wildlife interactions. In fact, the respective wild animals are often known to be active, minded and affective beings in the examined field practices, and contributors to the production of knowledge assisting the employment of management strategies. Subsequently, five cohabitation strategies have been identified; zoning, human-wild animal education, regulatory strategy, joint usage, and letting go. The three central insights of this research to further cohabitation in wildlife management are: focus on mutuality; highlight differences between humans and wild animals; and regulate their interactions based on detailed multisensory and affective knowing. I argue that to reveal the main processes and principle causes of human-wildlife conflicts and promote cohabitation, this knowledge is required and can be gained by an in-depth understanding of wildlife management practices, including the human-wildlife-landscape interactions. In conclusion, I propose an affirmative management approach that has the potential to generate so-called micro-geographies of multispecies cohabitation.
Topics: Social-ecological systems as a framework for conservation management , Topics: Management of Human-Wildlife Conflicts: Large Carnivores in Europe , Topics: Management of Human-Wildlife Conflicts: “Other” Species in Europe
