With AWF funding support, the Ruaha Carnivore Project is ensuring that people derive benefit from living alongside cheetah, wild dog and other carnivores.
Photo by Ruaha Carnivore Project
Though they live next to Tanzania’s largest national park, residents in the villages surrounding Ruaha National Park see no benefits from the presence of wildlife, particularly carnivores. And there are plenty of carnivores here: The area supports a tenth of the world’s remaining lions, one of East Africa’s four large cheetah populations and one of only six remaining viable populations of the African wild dog.
With people living in such close proximity to wildlife, livestock depredation is a regular phenomenon. So are retaliatory killings of carnivores, particularly lions. In 2011 – 2012, the rate of lion killing in this area was the highest in all of East Africa. One village reportedly killed 39 lions in 18 months.