Research overview: tiger-human conflict and livestock depredation

Where tigers and people share landscapes, conflict over livestock and occasional attacks on humans shapes both tiger survival and local attitudes. This overview synthesizes studies on the circumstances of depredation, showing that livestock losses concentrate near reserve edges, increase when wild prey is scarce, and often involve injured, old, or dispersing tigers. It reviews how attacks on people, though rare, have profound social consequences, and how mitigation through compensation, livestock guarding, prey recovery, and corridor management can reduce friction. The synthesis frames conflict as a central challenge for coexistence in densely populated Asia. For conservation audiences it explains why tiger recovery depends not only on protecting forests and prey but on managing the human dimension at reserve boundaries, where the interests of a wide-ranging predator and rural communities most directly collide.