A rare wild predator can depend on the farm animals it raids. Even where wild prey is plentiful, the cats gather where herds are, and about 70 percent of what they eat comes from livestock. Poor herders' animals may be keeping the predator's numbers artificially high.
Farmers pay for keeping a predator alive with lost animals, extra labor and worry, and those costs go unseen. The rewards go elsewhere: conservation groups, city elites and state agencies collect moral satisfaction, careers, funding and prestige. The people carrying the burden are not the ones gaining from it.
The workable fix is a village insurance scheme rather than a protected area. Farmers pay a small premium per animal and are paid back when a predator kills one. This shifts the cost of coexistence off individual herders, and it has helped protect the species.