Managing boldness of wildlife: an ethological approach to reducing crop damage

Wildlife can cause serious crop damages, and factorial analyses focusing ecological aspects have been conducted to resolve this problem. However, ethological perspectives should also be considered. Individuals often show consistent biases in behaviour—so-called personality; e.g., boldness may cause to intrude into a farmland. Here, we hypothesized that boldness–shyness traits in wildlife could be managed through selective harvesting on the base of personality traits. We considered several scenarios involving the selective harvesting and fencing as means to prevent crop damage, and assessed their effects on the average boldness and population size using simulation models, assuming that bold individuals tend to enter farmlands, while shy ones prefer to stay in forests. The results showed that fencing and selective harvesting in farmlands reduced both the average boldness and crop damages, while harvesting in forests caused the increase of the both. Those results came from the selective harvesting and fencing on the base of personality traits, and indicate that not only population ecology but also an ethological approach is needed for wildlife management.