“Although elephants bring problems, they also bring benefits:” The complexities of human-wildlife coexistence

As wildlife populations decline globally, there is a growing need to discover ways that humans and wildlife can sustainably coexist in shared landscapes. One way to assess the potential for human-wildlife coexistence is by examining human attitudes, perceptions, and tolerance of wildlife. However, the relationships between these interlinked concepts are not always clear. Furthermore, much of the research on human tolerance of wildlife to date fails to assess differences across species. Here, we use a novel application of ethnoecological methodologies (including free-listing and pile-sorting) to assess local people’s attitudes toward and tolerance of a variety of wildlife species. We conducted our study in Mukungule Game Management Area outside North Luangwa National Park in Zambia. Our results reveal significant nuance in people’s attitudes toward and tolerance of local wildlife. We found that people generally like local wildlife, but the positive attitudes did not always translate into tolerance of those wildlife species. Elephants (Loxodonta africana) were collectively considered the most liked, disliked, beneficial, and harmful (according to Smith’s Salience scores from free-listing), and 32 percent of participants were tolerant of elephants. We highlight the importance of assessing determinants of tolerance within a local and species-specific context.