A tale of two species: Human perception influences outcome of human-wild life interactions

Human appreciation of wild life may be an important factor in population management and conservation practices in urban and semi-urban areas. Human attitude towards bird species may vary from peaceful coexistence to a perception of birds as pests. Based on the data collected from survey interviews, we studied the perceptions of local communities in Rajasthan, India towards Indian Peafowl. Local communities in Rajasthan reported Indian Peafowl as crop pest and this perception varied across seasons. The crop loss incurred due to Indian Peafowl also varied across seasons according to the respondents. Despite reporting peafowls as a crop pest, locals regularly offered grains for them as a traditional practice. Food provisioning by local human population influenced feeding ecology and time-budget of Indian Peafowls across three field sites (Morachi Chincholi, Nashik and Rajasthan). Sites at which food provisioning was less or not reliable (Nashik), peafowl spent more time in searching for food and more than half of their diet consisted of natural food. In contrast, the sites at which plenty of grains were available (Morachi Chincholi and Rajasthan), proportion of time spent in other behaviours was significantly less; and over 70% of their diet consisted of carbohydrate and protein-rich provisioned grains. In areas where food provisioning was less, feeding frequency of Indian peafowl population was significantly less compared to areas where plenty of food was provided by humans. Our results demonstrate that human perception towards wild life may be important to predict the consequences of human-wildlife interactions.