Human-wildlife conflict is amplified during periods of drought

Climate change-induced alterations to human-wildlife interactions are
recognized to pose a fundamental challenge for global conservation
initiatives. However, the extent to which specific climatic disturbances
influence the dynamics of human-wildlife conflict across different
taxonomic groups remains poorly understood. Here, we leverage an extensive
dataset of community-derived human-wildlife conflict incidents to examine
the influence of drought, represented by the variation in summed
precipitation over the prior 12 months, on conflict reporting. We show
that prolonged decreases in precipitation are associated with increased
overall conflict occurrences across taxa and are significantly associated
with increased conflict with carnivore species in particular. A future
with increasingly severe and frequent droughts could lead to resource
scarcity that not only causes conflict between humans but also between
humans and the natural world around them.