DOI: 10.5061/dryad.tht76hdz3
title: Pattern of crop raiding by wild large mammals and the resultant impacts vary with distances from forests in southwest Ethiopia

description: Crop raiding is a major form of human-wildlife interaction mainly in the
 ecotone areas of human-modified-natural landscapes. The aim of this study
 was to examine the spatial pattern of crop raiding and the resultant
 impacts on how farmers perceive forests at different distances from Yayu
 Coffee Forest Biosphere Reserve which is located in southwest Ethiopia.
 For this, thirty transects (each 1km long) were laid out at 200m interval
 parallel to forest edges: ten transects close to forest (&lt;0.5km),
 ten at intermediate (0.5-1km) and ten transects were taken far from forest
 (&gt;1km). Along each transect 2-6 households were randomly selected
 and interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire. The perception of the
 respondents on forests at different distances from forest edges was
 analyzed using Pearson’s Chi-square test. The variation in the amount of
 damage among these three locations was tested using one-way ANOVA. Four
 wild large mammals including; olive baboon, vervet monkey, bush pigs and
 crested porcupine were identified as top crop raiders in the area. The
 frequencies of occurrence of crop raiders decreased with increasing
 distance from forest edges. Similarly, the amount of damage in maize
 fields was higher close to forests when compared with that of either at
 intermediate or far from forest edges (P&lt;0.001). Eighty one percent
 of the households living close to the forests perceive that forest is a
 threat to their survival. Overall, our results imply that strategies need
 to be sought in order to minimize the socio-ecological impacts of crop
 raiders mainly in locations close to forest edges.
description: The
 first 1km long transect was laid out along the edges of Yayu Coffee
 Forest. In the next, 29 transects (each 1km long) were arranged with 200m
 interval in parallel to the first transect and to each other in the
 agricultural landscape. These transects were categorized into three
 locations: ten transects close to forest (&lt;0.5km), ten intermediate
 (0.5-1km) and ten transects far from forest (&gt;1km) in similar
 method used by Lemessa et al. (2013). By walking along each transect in
 zigzag way turning right and left, the households were randomly selected
 for questionnaire survey. Accordingly, from each three locations from
 forest edges (i.e., 48 households close to, 38 intermediate and 38 far
 away from forest households) or 2-6 households from each thirty transects
 and in total 124 households were interviewed using semi-structured
 questionnaire. This household level interview was executed during the crop
 growing and maturity seasons from February 1<sup>st</sup> to
 30 July 2019. The major data collected were the
 type of crop raiders and the frequency of occurrences per year, crop
 species liable to be raided, extent of crop damage and how the households
 perceive the about the Yayu Coffee Forest. The scientific names of the
 large mammals were identified using field guide of large mammals of Africa
 after their local or common names in <i>Afaan Oromo</i> were
 collected during the questioner survey ((Stuart, 2006). Moreover, after
 the maize crop was identified as the most liable to crop raiding, one
 maize field of each of 22, 21 and 21 households used for questionnaire
 survey were respectively selected from the three locations close to
 forest, intermediate and far away from forest edge at random to estimate
 the extent of crop raiding. Correspondingly, four permanent plots (size:
 4´4m each) were randomly established in each of the 64 maize sown fields
 of the households (0.5ha each on average) in March 2019 and at the
 maturity stage the number of damaged stems due to crop raiding were
 recorded in July, 2019. Moreover, the amount of annual yield loss
 estimated by respondents was compared with the yield loss we computed
 based on the secondary data of the average annual yield of maize from Yayu
 District Agricultural Development Office of the study area (YDADO, 2019).
 Here, the percent of annual yield loss due to crop raiding was calculated
 in percent from the difference between the amount of annual maize yield
 from the field survey (actual yield of maize) and average annual yield of
 maize obtained from YDADO.