The numbers of livestock killed per year, which are reported in
publications, usually do not represent actual livestock losses to
carnivores. They come mostly from interviews and also from carnivore
diets, livestock carcasses, farm reports and authority appraisals for
compensation. Interviews may underestimate losses if remote or less
and accessible villages are under-represented, if villagers forget cases
or if they are reluctant to share information (Holmern et al., 2007;
Kissui, 2008). On the other hand, villagers may overestimate losses if
they assign other mortality causes to carnivore attacks, if they perceive
carnivores as evil disproportionally to actual threat or if they want to
attract attention or get compensation