Résumé
1. Demography and conservation status of many wild organisms are
increasingly shaped by interactions with humans. This is particularly the
case for large, wide ranging carnivores. 2. Using 206 mortality records
(1999-2012) of lions in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, we calculated
mortality rates for each source of anthropogenic mortality, modelled risk
of anthropogenic mortality across the landscape accounting for time lions
spent in different parts of the landscape, and assessed whether subsets of
the population were more at risk. 3. Anthropogenic activities caused 88%
of male and 67% of female mortalities; male mortality being dominated by
trophy hunting while the sources for female mortality were more varied
(snaring, retaliatory killing, hunting). 4. Landscapes of anthropogenic
mortality risk revealed that communal subsistence farming areas,
characterized by high risk (due to retaliatory killing) but avoided by
lions, are population sinks. Trophy hunting areas and areas within
protected areas bordering communal farmland, where bush-meat snaring is
prevalent, form ‘ecological traps’ (or ‘attractive sinks’). 5. Lions
avoided risky areas, suggesting they may make behavioural decisions based
on perceptions of risk. Experienced adults used risky areas less and
incorporated lower proportions of them in their home ranges than young
individuals, suggesting that the latter may either be naïve or forced into
peripheral habitats. Synthesis and applications: This paper contributes to
an understanding of the way in which carnivore populations are affected by
anthropogenic mortality across the conservation landscape. This is
critical to designing focussed, appropriate and cost effective
conservation management strategies. Agricultural areas are intuitively
identified by conservationists as being risky for carnivores due to
retaliatory or pre-emptive killing, with threats largely mitigated against
by improving livestock protection. However, parts of protected areas may
also form less easily identified ‘attractive sinks’ for carnivores. In
particular, trophy hunting adjacent to national parks needs careful
management to avoid damaging effects of overhunting. Law enforcement is
needed to reduce the effects of bush-meat poaching on predators and other
wildlife in protected areas. To be most effective, resource limited
anti-poaching activities should prioritise wildlife rich areas close to
human settlement as these tend to be hotspots for bush-meat poaching.