The Wildlife Next Door:

Wildlife can threaten people’s safety and livelihoods, which can lead to conflicts between groups of people over how to resolve the situation; experts call this ‘human-wildlife conflict’.

• Human-wildlife conflicts are becoming more frequent, serious and widespread as human populations grow and habitats are lost.

• Effectively managing human-wildlife conflicts protects communities, stops conflicts escalating, builds trust in conservation and avoids retaliation against wildlife.

• Human-wildlife conflicts have unique ecological, cultural, social, historical, physical, economic and political characteristics which strategies to manage conflicts must consider.

From IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, https://iucn.org/resources/issues-brief/human-wildlife-conflict

In California, habitat loss and a changing climate have increased the frequency and type of Human-Wildlife Conflict reported to California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

It has become more common for people to be "living with wildlife" as communities grow along the urban-wildlands interface and wildlife look for limited resources such as food, water, and habitat. 

Vision: To proactively address human-wildlife conflicts and improve wildlife incident responses; to support safe human-wildlife interactions; and to increase understanding, awareness and appreciation of wildlife in California.

From the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Human-Wildlife Conflicts Toolkit, https://wildlife.ca.gov/HWC