Laëtitia Maréchal, Tracie McKinney, Rie Usui, Catherine M. Hill
Abstract
Human-wildlife interactions are widely diverse from sharing our space with wild animals to using them through leisure activities. Therefore, this timely chapter explores human attitude, beliefs, values and behaviour towards wildlife, as well as their implications for both humans and wild animals. The first part focuses on human-wildlife sharing the same environment using cross-cultural perspectives and provides insights into conflicts about wildlife. The second section explores the use of wildlife in entertainment, from performance (e.g., circus), media (e.g., film), captivity, (e.g., zoo) to wildlife tourism (i.e., where people travel to see wild animals in their natural habitat). Finally, the chapter discusses the potential future directions for developing more sustainable human-wildlife interactions in entertainment.
Reading recommendations
Conover, M.R., & Conover, D.O. (2022). Human-Wildlife Interactions: From Conflict to Coexistence (2nd ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429401404
Frank, B., Glikman, J. A., & Marchini, S. (Eds.). (2019). Human–wildlife interactions: turning conflict into coexistence (Vol. 23). Cambridge University Press.
Hill, C. M., Webber, A. D., & Priston, N. E. (Eds.). (2017). Understanding conflicts about wildlife: a biosocial approach (Vol. 9). Berghahn Books.
McKinney, T., Waters, S., & Rodrigues, M. A. (Eds.). (2023). Primates in Anthropogenic Landscapes: Exploring Primate Behavioural Flexibility Across Human Contexts. Springer International Publishing.
Woodroffe, R., Thirgood, S., & Rabinowitz, A. (Eds.). (2005). People and wildlife, conflict or co-existence? (Vol. 9). Cambridge University Press.
Web resources and Presentation recommendations
International Union for Conservation of Nature: Human & Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence: link here
International Union for Conservation of Nature: Human-Primate Interaction webinars: link here
European Association of Zoos and Aquaria conference videos: link here
Activity
What is human-wildlife interaction? Find a video or a picture of a human-wildlife interaction on the Internet or that you witnessed, and describe the interaction from the human and then from the animal perspective. Based on your knowledge from Chapter 11 and using the Ethical Matrix in Chapter 4, how would you assess this human-wildlife interaction? What would you recommend to make such interaction safer for all parties?
For example:
