Human procurement of meat from lion (Panthera leo) kills: Costs of disturbance and implications for carnivore conservation

Abstract

In Africa, humans and large carnivores compete over access to resources, including prey. Disturbance by humans to kills made by carnivores, often for purposes of obtaining all or portions of the carcass, constitutes a form of human-wildlife conflict. However the occurrence of this practice, known as human kleptoparasitism, and its impact on carnivores has received little scientific attention. We obtained expert opinions from African lion researchers and stakeholders via a standardized questionnaire to characterize the geographic extent and frequency of human kleptoparasitism as it occurs in modern times. Our survey found modern human kleptoparasitism on kills made by lions, and possibly other large carnivores in Africa, to be geographically more widespread than previously reported. Meat lost to humans requires carnivores to hunt and kill additional prey thereby causing stress, increasing their energetic costs and risks of natural injury, and exposing them to risk of direct injury or death from human usurpers. Because of their conspicuous behaviors and tendency towards killing large-bodied prey, lions are particularly susceptible to humans detecting their kills. While human kleptoparasitism was geographically widespread, socio-economic factors influenced the frequency of occurrence. Prey type (wild game or domestic livestock) influenced human attitudes towards meat theft; ownership allows for legal recovery of livestock carcasses, while possessing wild game meat is mostly illegal and may incur penalties. Meat theft was associated with other illegal activities (i.e., illegal mining) and most prevalent among people of low income, including underpaid game scouts. Despite quantifiable costs to carnivores of human disturbance to their kills, the majority of experts surveyed reported a lack of knowledge on this practice. We propose that human disturbance at kills, especially loss of prey through human kleptoparasitism, constitutes an important anthropogenic threat that may seriously impact energy budgets of individual lions and other scavengers when meat and carcasses are removed from the ecosystem, and that the costs incurred by carnivores warrants further investigation.