Conflict Between Himalayan Palm Civet (Paguma larvata) and Local Community for Food Competition in District Dir Lower, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Conflict Between Himalayan Palm Civet (Paguma larvata) and Local Community for Food Competition in District Dir Lower, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Tariq Ahmad1*, Anum Razzaq2*, Li Bo1, Faiz ur Rehman3, Gul Saba2, Omama Saqib1, Saif Ullah2 and Muhammad Suliman1
ABSTRACT
Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) has a long history, it has become a major concern for wildlife management due to its expanding magnitude and nature complexity, affecting largely local communities that nearer to forests. Therefore, the two villages of District Dir lower (village Takoro and village Koherai Malakand), the part of great Himalayas has been selected to highlight the conflict between Himalayan palm civet (Paguma larvata) and local community during January 2018 to end of November 2020. During current studies it was found that the problem mainly arises due to civets foraging habits, who damages and feed human cultivated fruits, stored wheat grains and attacks on their domestic poultry. The results demonstrated that the ability of civets to change their diet in response to availability of food resources, as it found the consumption of Vitis vinifera in bulk in the month of July and August whereas Diospyros lotus and Diospyros kaki were the most preferred diet in the month of September and October. We were informed that Civet cats were predominantly killed (N=60) in village Takoro and (N=30) in village Koherai Malakand as a result of human wildlife conflict (HWC), limited fruit availability causes Himalayan palm civet to attack domestic poultry. The three-year data show that (Vitis vinifera) had the highest economic loss which is $ 12,897.63 followed by domestic poultry $ 9,232.15, Diospyros kaki $ 7,846.21, and Diospyros lotus $ 3,168.66. According to respondents fruits attack (40%) and domestic poultry attack (32%), were the major root of conflict followed by agriculture damage (12%), livestock attack (10%) and human settlement (6%). This unwarranted killing must be stopped immediately, otherwise this species will become extinct.
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