Abstract

Human-wildlife conflicts involving protected predators are a major social and environmental problem worldwide. A critical aspect in such conflicts is the role of State institutions regarding predators’ conservation, and how this is construed by local affected population. These interpretations are frequently embodied in conspirational rumours in different countries, sharing some common traits related to wild and domestic categories, spatial ordering, and power relations. In southern Chile, a one-year multi-sited ethnographic study of human-animal relations in protected areas and adjacent ones was undertaken, bringing forward conspirational rumours concerning protected predators. Through the analysis of this study and international cases, this article highlights that the uncritical dismissal of rumours and the categories used to interpret such conflicts have detrimental impacts on the conservation of wild predators, where the former should be understood as significant comment devices of human-animal relations, and of the power dynamics that frame human groups affected by them.