THE RED CAPS
The Red Caps focus on programs to help resolve human-wildlife conflicts and to develop initiatives which facilitate cohabitation.
Those conflicts relate to situations detrimental both to villagers and to animals.
There are farmers whose fields or barns have been rampaged by elephants, and who are ready to kill these animals; there is a shepherd who has poisoned a lion that attacked his livestock.
In order to better understand these problems in all their complexities, our teams study the specific cases where they happen. Through pre-established questionnaires, we gather information from victims and witnesses, measure the extent of damages, take photographs and specify GPS points. Results are entered into our database, so that now we have access to information from thousands of conflicts, and ours is one of the biggest existing databases on human-wildlife conflicts in the world.
Given this database, we are equipped to initiate programs to mitigate the level of conflicts. It includes the introduction of alternative crops that are repellant to herbivores, or different proposals on how to better protect livestock and property. Once mutual trust has been established between our staff and the communities, we can launch our pedagogical programs with a strong probability of positive results.
