In NATURE’s Silent Roar viewers meet Rodney Jackson, one of the world’s leading snow leopard biologists and conservationists. Jackson, who has 25 years of experience in the field, directs the Snow Leopard Conservancy. The organization works with local communities in India and elsewhere to develop strategies for protecting snow leopards, including helping local residents protect their livestock from predation. Jackson prepared the snow leopard section of the IUCN-World Conservation Union’s Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan for Cats, the major blueprint for wildcat conservation. Jackson spoke with NATURE from the Conservancy’s California office.

How did you become interested in snow leopards?

I was born in Africa, in what is now Zimbabwe, and I came to the U.S. in the 1960s to get a degree. I always assumed that I would go back to Africa and work on wildlife conservation there. But this was the late 1960s, and it was hard to get a job. Then, a little later, I saw the first picture of a wild snow leopard published in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, and I said: “Wow! I have to see one of those for myself.”

Rodney Jackson, director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy

In 1975, I ended up in a very remote area in Nepal that looked like a very good habitat for snow leopards. I found their signs [marks] and saw plenty of evidence of poaching of snow leopards and their prey. I quickly realized we would have to do something if this cat was going to survive. We didn’t really know anything about snow leopards back then. So in the early 1980s, I received funding to go back to Nepal with my partner Darla [Hillard] and biologist Gary Ahlborn. We worked with a Nepalese biologist to produce the first radio-tracking study of snow leopards. It took four and a half years, and remains the seminal study done so far.

What did you discover?

We found that the cats have worked out interesting ways of sharing a common piece of turf without being there at the same time. To communicate, they mark rocks and make scrapes on the ground. This allows the animals to know who is around, and to rotate through the same area, to share it. We found we had one of the highest densities of snow leopards ever reported — about 10 to 12 animals per 100 square kilometers. Even so, we hardly ever saw them.

What’s changed during the time you’ve been working on snow leopards?

One big change is that in the early days, there was very much a policing attitude on the part of governments when it came to snow leopards. They passed laws making it illegal to hunt them, but they couldn’t enforce them in remote areas where snow leopards are most common. Nor was it easy, with their limited budgets, for rangers to patrol such rugged habitat. So I realized that the future of the species rests very strongly with local communities. I believe stewardship by locals is really the best and only long-term, sustainable conservation strategy.

How does that work?

First you have to deal with snow leopards the way that many local people see them: as a pest. Across its range, the snow leopard is really seen as a problem because it attacks and kills livestock. The biggest problem is multiple losses. A leopard will enter a livestock pen at night — the pen keeps the livestock in, but not the predator out — and its hunting instinct will be triggered repeatedly. It can kill 30, 50, or 100 animals, and that is a catastrophe for the livestock owner.

So our job is to transform conflict into coexistence. We involve the communities right from the beginning — from women and children to elders. This allows us to blend traditional knowledge with scientific information. One of the first steps is to come up with a plan to predator-proof the night corrals. We’ve learned that it’s very important to share the costs, so our efforts aren’t seen as just a handout. Local people may provide labor and some of the materials, like stone for higher walls. We buy materials that they can’t afford — wire mesh, a good door, and a lock. With a new pen, we’ve made it possible for the herders to go home at night and not have to sleep on the cold ground outside the pen.

But a predator-proof corral doesn’t solve the whole problem. There is still predation out on the open range. So another part of the balance is to find ways to increase household income. One way to do that is through nature tourism. We’ve helped organize home-stay programs where trekkers can stay in local homes, or we’ve trained local people as guides that can show visitors snow leopard signs. All these economic incentives are then linked together with a monitoring program that helps keep track of the local snow leopards. We’re even training people to set up the camera traps.

Is it working?

It really is working, and local people’s attitudes about snow leopards are changing. Rinchen Wangchuk, our field director in India, told me recently: “At first the villagers could not understand why we had chosen for our organization the name of a despised predator. Today, their sentiments are echoed in the words of one: ‘Wild animals are like the ornaments of our mountains!’”

This tells us that our work is effective. In our India program area, we know the snow leopard population has remained pretty stable over the last two years, at about eight per 100 square kilometers. However, there have been some changes. For example, the dominant male seen in the film has been replaced by a younger male.

You sound optimistic about the snow leopard’s future.

Yes and no. I’m optimistic, but the snow leopard is not safe across its complete range. Snow leopards are found in 12 countries, in an area about the size of the Western United States. They are basically tied to mountain ranges with few people. We know the population has gone down, but not exactly by how much. And there is a growing threat in China, from people who want to buy the bones and so forth for medicines. So the future remains unclear. But whenever we start to feel down, we remember that for every village’s livestock pens made predator-proof, we save at least five snow leopards.

Wolves have been feared, hated, and persecuted for hundreds of years in North America. Before the arrival of Europeans, Native Americans incorporated wolves into their legends and rituals, portraying them as ferocious warriors in some traditions and thieving spirits in others. European Americans, however, simply despised wolves. Many, including celebrated painter and naturalist John James Audubon, believed wolves ought to be eradicated for the threat they posed to valuable livestock. This attitude enabled a centuries-long extermination campaign that nearly wiped out the gray wolf in the continental United States by 1950.

Origins of Wolf Hatred

In the New World, two top predators – wolves and men – that otherwise would have avoided each other clashed over livestock. In Vicious: Wolves and Men in America, Jon T. Coleman writes:

Wolves had a ghostly presence in colonial landscapes. Settlers heard howls, but they rarely spotted their serenaders. The fearsome beasts avoided humans. People frightened them, and colonists knew this: “They are fearefull Curres,” reported Thomas Morton in 1637, “and will runne away from a man (that meeteth them by chance at a banke end) as fast as any fearefull dogge.”

Because humans and wolves frightened one another, they logically avoided confrontation, opening space between the species. But that space closed when European colonists brought horses, cattle, sheep and pigs with them over the perilous journey across the Atlantic. Without these animals – sources of food and transportation for the European settlers – the colonies would have failed. But because most early colonial communities were small, livestock often grazed on the periphery of the settlements with little protection. Their pastures abutted and bled into the wild, exposing the animals to hungry wolves in search of prey. Wolves quickly learned that docile cattle and sheep made easy meals. Suddenly, colonists found their livelihoods in danger, and they lashed out at wolves, both with physical violence and folklore that ensured wolf hatred would be passed down from one generation to the next.

Amateur and Professional Wolf Baiting

The campaign to eradicate wolves in North America began with private landowners and farmers baiting and trapping wolves. Often, colonists turned wolf baiting into both sport and protection for their livestock. Jon T. Coleman describes an incident that took place in the winter of 1814 deep in the Ohio River Valley, in which John James Audubon assists a farmer as he mutilates trapped wolves.

During the fall, a pack of wolves had robbed [the farmer] of “nearly the whole of his sheep and one of his colts.” For him, it made sense to devote his winter labor to digging pits, weaving platforms, hunting bait, and setting and checking his traps twice daily. The animals had injured him, and “he was now ‘paying them off in full.’” Audubon’s reaction to the slaying of the wolves is less understandable … The ingenious pit traps amazed him, as did the fearsome predators’ meek behavior and the childlike glee the farmer took in his work. The violence Audubon witnessed, however, did not shock him. Watching a pack of dogs rip apart terrified and defenseless animals was a “sport” both he and the farmer found enjoyable.

Further west, in Yellowstone National Park, wolf baiting and hunting had become a lucrative profession. Paul Schullery, in his guidebook to Yellowstone wolves (The Yellowstone Wolf: A Guide & Sourcebook), describes the profession and the devastating affect it had on the Yellowstone wolf population: “At least as early as 1877, ungulate carcasses in the park were poisoned with strychnine by free-lance ‘wolfers’ for ‘wolf or wolverine bait.’ By 1880, [Yellowstone National Park] Superintendent [Philetus] Norris stated in his annual report that ‘…the value of their [wolves and coyotes] hides and their easy slaughter with strychnine-poisoned carcasses have nearly led to their extermination.’”

In the Southwest, as settlers depleted bison, elk, deer, and moose populations – the wolves’ natural prey – the predators turned more and more to picking off livestock. In states like New Mexico where cattle ranching was big business, ranchers responded by turning to professional wolfers and bounty hunters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports, “To protect livestock, ranchers and government agencies began an eradication campaign. Bounty programs initiated in the 19th century continued as late as 1965, offering $20 to $50 per wolf. Wolves were trapped, shot, dug from their dens, and hunted with dogs. Poisoned animal carcasses were left out for wolves, a practice that also killed eagles, ravens, foxes, bears, and other animals that fed on the tainted carrion.”

Government-Sanctioned Wolf Extermination Programs   

Government wolf trapper

Towards the end of the 19^th Century, wealthy livestock owners increased both their demand for wider grazing ranges and their influence over policymakers in Washington, D.C. In 1885, the federal government established the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey, initially chartered to research insects and birds. However, the livestock lobby quickly diverted the Bureau’s attention to wolves. Stockowners complained that their land was infested with wolves, calling them “breeding grounds.” They demanded the federal government secure their land for safe pasturage.

In 1906, the U.S. Forest Service acquiesced to the stockowners and enlisted the help of the Bureau of Biological Survey to clear cattle ranges of gray wolves. In other words, the Bureau became a wolf-extermination unit. Bruce Hampton writes in The Great American Wolf:

That same year [1906], bureau biologist Vernon Bailey traveled to Wyoming and New Mexico to investigate the extent of wolf and coyote depredations. Upon Bailey’s return to Washington, D.C., President Roosevelt invited him to the White House to see what he had learned. Although there is no record of their conversation, immediately following Bailey’s meeting the President, the Biological Survey recommended that the government begin “devising methods for the destruction of the animals [wolves].”

By the middle of the 20^th Century, government-sponsored extermination had wiped out nearly all gray wolves in the Lower 48 states. Only a small population remained in northeastern Minnesota and Michigan. Yet the Bureau of Biological Survey was still disseminating anti-wolf propaganda as late as 1940. One poster from the time read:

According to estimates of stockmen [the Custer Wolf, pictured in the poster] killed $25,000 worth of cattle during the seven years he was known in the vicinity of Custer, South Dakota … A local bounty of $500 failed to secure his capture. A Department hunter ended his career of destruction by a skillfully set trap. Many notorious wolves are known to have killed cattle valued at $3000 to $5000 in a year. More than 3,849 wolves have been destroyed by the predatory animal work of the Department and its cooperators since the work was organized in 1915.

It was not until the late sixties, when a greater understanding of natural ecosystems began changing attitudes in the scientific community and the National Park Service, that the plight of wolves in North America began to improve.

In 1973, Congress gave gray wolves protection under the Endangered Species Act. According to Douglas Smith and Gary Ferguson, in Yellowstone National Park, where the last gray wolf was killed in 1926, “the entire [gray wolf] restoration program was guided by directives contained in the Endangered Species Act – a law created to ground a decades-old cornerstone of science that says the healthiest, most stable natural systems tend to be those with high levels of biodiversity.”

Since then, wolf populations throughout the country have increased. In 1995 and 1996, researchers in Yellowstone National Park released 31 Canadian gray wolves back into the wild. The event was hailed as a testament to the conservation movement’s efforts to revive wild wolf populations in America. Yet antiwolf attitudes persist. Shortly after the release of the Yellowstone wolves a hunter shot and killed Wolf Number 10. Smith and Ferguson write about the incident: “As disturbing as the shooting itself was, more unsavory still was the reaction of a handful of locals who cheered the killing, calling it an act of heroism.”

Photos © Arizona Historical Society

Sources

Coleman, Jon T. Vicious: Wolves and Men in America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2004.

Hampton, Bruce. The Great American Wolf. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1997.

Robinson, Michael J. Predatory Bureaucracy: The Extermination of Wolves and the Transformation of the West. University Press of Colorado, 2005.

Schullery, Paul. The Yellowstone Wolf: A Guide & Sourcebook. Worland, Wymoning: High Plains Publishing Company, Inc., 1996.

Smith, Douglas W. and Gary Ferguson. Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone. Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2005.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Gray Wolf Fact Sheet. [updated January 2007; cited November 2008]

To reverse the trend, lion conservationists are enlisting every ally they can find. In early 2006, for instance, two groups — the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society — held a “lion summit” in Johannesburg, South Africa. They invited Africans from all walks of life to share their views on what it might take to keep lion numbers from dwindling.

Community leaders, for instance, discussed the threat that lions pose to Africa’s growing livestock operations. As cattle herds push into lion habitat, some of the cats have developed a taste for the easy-to-kill cows. Farmers desperate to protect their livelihoods often kill the predators. One key to protecting lions, summit delegates agreed, is to find ways to help farmers better protect their herds. Sometimes the solution is just a stronger fence.

Other delegates discussed the importance of protecting the lion’s natural habitat and sources of food, such as large herds of gazelle. “If there is nothing for them to eat, they turn to livestock and people too, occasionally,” IUCN cat specialist Kristin Nowell told reporters. One key will be making sure prey species have enough room to roam, perhaps by creating new protected areas or better protection in existing parks.

Innovative ways of conserving lions were also on the agenda. In some areas, for instance, tourists will pay big money to see the big cats. If that income can be funneled into local communities, it can create a strong financial incentive to protect the animals, the delegates agreed. Local people often know best “how to live together with lions; they have been doing so for a very long time,” said James Murombedzi, who directs the IUCN’s office in Zimbabwe.

Ironically, even lion hunting might help protect the species, some delegates noted. As NATURE’s The Vanishing Lions shows, trophy hunting for lions can be an important source of income for guides and local inns. The trick is to make sure that hunters don’t kill too many, researchers explained. If limits are set correctly, delegates said in a statement, “trophy hunting [is not] a threat but rather a way to help alleviate human-lion conflict and generate economic benefits for poor people to build their support for lion conservation.”

Overall, organizers are optimistic that the summit will set a new course for lion conservation in Africa. “It helped us to understand where other people are coming from — different backgrounds, different philosophies,” said Julius Kipng’etich, who directs Kenya’s Wildlife Service. “At the end of the day, we boiled it down to one main problem: unsustainable lion populations.”

Now the challenge will be finding the money and political support needed to translate plans into action. Conservationists recall that last century, African governments created parks and reserves in order to to protect lions threatened by overhunting. That success proved fleeting, however, as other problems, including human population growth, emerged. Addressing these problems will take far more sophisticated and cooperative solutions, cautions the IUCN’s Kristin Nowell. But she says the history of lion conservation has provided an important lesson: “We don’t want this century to be a repeat of the last.” This time, conservationists say, people will need to learn how to live with lions…or end up living without them.

It’s called the Laikipia Plateau. It sits along the equator in central Kenya, in the shadow of snow-capped Mount Kenya. Laikipia’s vast grasslands, riverbanks, and watering holes attract a rich array of wildlife, including some of Kenya’s largest numbers of rhinos, elephants, leopards, and buffalo. Researchers say the area — about 2 million acres — also supports nearly 200 African lions.

Laikipia is also home to people, including Maasai herders, who often come into conflict with lions that have learned to prey on easy-to-catch cows. The end result, too often, is dead cattle and dead lions.

In hopes of protecting both lions and farmers, local communities have embarked on a model experiment in wildlife-friendly land management called the Laikipia Predator Project, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society and an array of other conservation groups. One of its main goals is to help local farmers protect their livestock from lions so they don’t have to kill them.

“Our studies have shown, not surprisingly, that properties that lose fewer livestock to predators tend to kill fewer predators,” write project leaders Laurence Frank and Rosie Woodroffe of the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya. “This suggests that we can conserve predators more successfully if we can prevent them from killing livestock. Better management may not only reduce livestock losses today — it should also prevent young predators from learning to take stock in the first place.”

The science of predator management is in its infancy, the pair says, “and every livestock producer has their own opinions on which practices best protect stock.” So one aim of the project has been to test which approaches work best. So far, the tests show that the best solutions employ basic common sense and are not very expensive, project leaders explain.

For instance, the studies have found that the design and construction of “bomas” — traditional corrals for sleeping livestock — are key to protecting livestock from lions. “The stronger the better,” project officials advise, adding that bomas built from thorny acacia bushes work better than those made from solid posts or stone. The researchers also discovered that the height of boma walls was much less important than their thickness. “Thick walls were especially effective at preventing lion attacks, presumably because they prevented cattle from breaking out,” the researchers concluded.

The studies have also revealed some other tricks. It helps to divide bomas into several “rooms,” for instance, and to place them near human residences. An armed guard nearby, along with a dog or two, also helps, although dogs can sometimes transmit diseases to wildlife. (In the Serengeti, domestic dogs were the source of a virus that killed many lions in the 1990s.)

The Laikipia researchers are now testing the idea that lions are less likely to attack livestock where there is plenty of wild prey nearby. In The Vanishing Lions, for instance, viewers follow scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society as they track lions that are wearing radio collars. The collars are used to study the cats’ hunting patterns and to try to understand why some prides develop a taste for livestock while others do not.

Ultimately, project officials hope that the “predator-friendly management that we develop as a community in Laikipia will be a model for better conservation in the rest of Africa.” So far, the results are promising, as the Laikipia plateau continues to be one of the few places in Kenya where predator populations are growing, not dwindling.