Space odyssey: Rephrasing conflicts over large carnivore conservation
Large carnivore conservation is akin to a multi-billion dollar riddle. Scores of researchers, activists, bureaucrats, politicians, livestock herders, and hunters each hold a clue to the solution, but cannot seem to be able to agree on how to bring it together. The large carnivores themselves are far from cooperative be it the wolf, tiger or leopard. They are constantly making a meal out of someone’s coveted animal, wild and domestic. On the one hand, are groups who favour large carnivores and their conservation and on the other, those that detest these red-in-thetooth-and-claw large carnivores and favour their removal. The battle lines are clearly marked. Or are they?