my name is XIMENA NERI
Mexican
Environmental Scientist
Wildlife Conservationist
Hanging out with ranchers to learn more about how they manage cattle. A ranch manager is teaching me here how to properly vaccinate cattle. In Latin America is common practice that ranchers and cowboys vaccinate and heal their animals, before calling for a vet.
To understand the "behaviour of the conflict" it is important to identify the source and extension. For my thesis, GPS points from recovered data were integrated in a Geographical Information System to feature spatially the extension and intensity of human-wolf conflict.
The Mexican "lobo", Canis lupus baileyi, has been my subject of study for several years now. This is the smallest subspecies of grey wolf in America, and is critically endangered with less than 400 lobos in the world.
To obtain data for my human-wolf conflict assessment, over a hundred directed interviews with ranchers were undertaken in the field. Although approaching ranchers and cattle owners was not always easy, the data obtained helped to gather information that otherwise was impossible to get.
Throughout my research and volunteering for the Mexican Wolf Recovery Project, I learned a great deal of strategies and tools to prevent depredations and increase the tolerance among cattle owners towards large carnivores
Cattle is widespread in the so-called "wilderness". Learning to interact with cattle owners is as important as helping them find the means to coexist with large carnivores.
This blog started out of my need to keep track of my human-wildlife coexistence/conflict readings and findings. I hope this becomes a place for anyone to share and learn about our relations with wildlife.
My interest in human wildlife conflict began with my passion for wolves and my enthusiasm to learn about human-nature interactions. This encouraged me to dedicate my undergraduate thesis to explore how cattle management influences the risk of mortality of the endangered Mexican Gray wolf, and the spatial intensity and extension of this risk.
Currently, I am looking for opportunities to further explore the complex interactions among ecological, economic, political and cultural factors in human-wildlife interactions and how this resonates in conservation management.