ABSTRACT

Wild animals raid crops, attack livestock, and sometimes threaten people. Conflicts with wildlife are widespread, assume a variety of forms, and elicit a range of human responses. Wildlife pests are frequently demonized and resisted by local communities while routinely 'controlled' by state authorities. However, to the great concern of conservationists, the history of many people-wildlife conflicts lies in human encroachment into wildlife territory.
In Natural Enemies the authors place the analytical focus on the human dimension of these conflicts - an area often neglected by specialists in applied ecology and wildlife management - and on their social and political contexts. Case studies of specific conflicts are drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe and America, and feature an assortment of wild animals, including chimpanzees, elephants, wild pigs, foxes, bears, wolves, pigeons and ducks.
These anthropologists challenge the narrow utilitarian view of wildlife pestilence by revealing the cultural character of many of our 'natural enemies'. Their reports from the 'front-line' expose one fact - human conflict with wildlife is often an expression of conflict between people.

chapter |14 pages

Chapter 2 Wildlife depredations in Malawi

The historical dimension

chapter |28 pages

Chapter 3 Half-man, half-elephant

Shapeshifting among the Baka of Congo

chapter |21 pages

Chapter 6 Animals behaving badly

Indigenous perceptions of wildlife protection in Nepal

chapter |25 pages

Chapter 7 Culling demons

The problem of bears in Japan

chapter |19 pages

Chapter 8 The wolf, the Saami and the urban shaman

Predator symbolism in Sweden

chapter |23 pages

Chapter 9 The problem of foxes

Legitimate and illegitimate killing in the English countryside

chapter |18 pages

Chapter 11 Ducks out of water

Nature conservation as boundary maintenance