Food Security, Politics and Perceptions of Wildlife Damage in Western Ethiopia

Farmers in Illubabor Zone, Ethiopia, lead a subsistence existence and hence any crop loss to wildlife is perceived to threaten food security. In the context of increasing farmer concerns about the level of crop damage caused by wild vertebrates, this study aimed to (1) determine the perceived impacts of a 2004 cull on wildlife and patterns of crop-raiding by wild vertebrates; (2) quantify current wildlife damage events in study farms by species responsible, time of damage, and location of farm affected; (3) identify features of the agricultural landscape that influence patterns of crop-raiding. Research involving participatory investigations with local farmers and field monitoring of wildlife damage events was undertaken over a 3-week period on eight farms spread across two study sites in central Illubabor. Farmers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the 2004 cull were found to be spatially variable; baboon-attributed crop losses were perceived to have declined in some but not all areas, whilst crop damage attributed to other species increased beyond pre-cull levels. Wildlife monitoring data suggest significant spatial and temporal variation in crop losses attributed to individual species, although baboon damage appears to occur more frequently, relative to other species, in farms located at the forest edge. This study provides the first quantitative assessment of crop damage by primates within Illubabor and serves as an initial exploratory analysis upon which future studies can build.