Public perceptions of African Crowned Eagles and other raptors in an urban–rural mosaic landscape and its importance for raptor conservation

Abstract The increase in human population size and the presence of several wildlife species in human-dominated landscapes inevitably lead to interactions that create good or bad relations between wildlife and humans. For instance, some communities perceive raptor species as a threat to domestic animals, thus creating human-raptor conflict and impacting raptor conservation and management. The overall aim of our study was to investigate the public attitudes and perceptions towards African Crowned Eagles ( Stephanoaetus coronatus , hereafter Crowned Eagle) in the urban–rural mosaic landscape of Durban, eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This was achieved through the use of questionnaire surveys and face-to-face interviews in rural areas. Furthermore, we conducted an online survey among urban communities. We used generalised linear mixed models to determine variables influencing respondents' (i) tolerance of Crowned Eagles, (ii) perceptions about Crowned Eagles, (iii) importance of Crowned Eagles, and (iv) perceiving Crowned Eagles as a threat to domestic animals. Our results showed that perceptions toward Crowned Eagles, the importance of Crowned Eagles and spending time in the forest positively influenced community members' tolerance of Crowned Eagles. Our results further showed that perceptions toward Crowned Eagles and education level negatively influenced whether community members perceived Crowned Eagles as a threat to domestic animals or not. Overall, Crowned Eagles were ‘loved’ by community members of eThekwini Municipality. However, a minority group of community members hated the Crowned Eagles and had negative attitudes and perceptions towards the species. Therefore, we recommend educating community members about Crowned Eagles’ ecology through community and school presentations to reduce negative attitudes and perceptions and facilitate raptor persistence in urban–rural mosaic landscapes.