An analytical approach to assess the level of tolerance among farmers towards wildlife conflict

Farmers ’tolerance towards wild animals are affected by a variety of factors and understanding those factors influencing low tolerance among people is essential for designing strategies to alleviate livestock owners-wildlife conflict. Conflict between human and wildlife are reported to be increasing over the time that leads to negative consequences cause low tolerance towards wild animals in local communities. In this context, a Likert's scale was developed to measure the farmers ’tolerance towards conflict between wildlife and livestock. A list of 30 positive and negative (60: 40) statements were prepared which indicated the tolerance of farmers and irrelevant statements were discarded. Remaining 17 statements were sent to the 50 judges who were the experts in the field of livestock or wildlife and requested to rate on five point continuum. On the basis of total individual scores of judges, the top 25 per cent judges with the highest scores and bottom 25 per cent judges with lowest total scores were considered for the study. On the basis of calculated ‘t ’values, 10 statements (8 positive and 2 negative) were retained for the final scale and this scale could be used to measure livestock owners ’tolerance beyond the study area with suitable modifications.