Research overview: landscape of fear concepts applied to livestock and predators

This overview examines how the ecological concept of the landscape of fear, the spatial distribution of perceived predation risk, has been applied to human-carnivore conflict. It synthesises work exploring how big cats' use of cover and terrain creates predictable risk surfaces for livestock, how prey and livestock alter behaviour in response, and how people perceive and navigate fear across landscapes shared with predators. The literature also extends the concept to human fear shaping where and how communities live and work near big cats. The survey frames the landscape-of-fear lens as a unifying ecological-behavioural framework linking predator habitat use, prey vulnerability, and human risk perception within a shared spatial logic of conflict.