A multistakeholder exercise to identify research and conservation priorities for Asian elephants in China

Chen, Shu; Sun, Guangying; Wang, Yun; Huang, Cheng; Chen, Ying; Liu, Peng; Deng, Yun; Cao, Da-Fan; Zhang, Mingxia; Ong, Saylin; Zhang, Zhongyuan; Yang, Haijun; Wang, Qiaoyan; Wang, Bin; Zheng, Xuan; Yuan, Lei; Li, Chun; Sun, Jing; Bao, Mingwei; Yang, Zi-Cheng; Guan, Ling; Zhou, Fangyi; Liu, Jingxin; Li, Lili; Wang, Fang; Corlett, Richard T.; Quan, Rui‐Chang; Chen, Mingyong; Zhang, Li; Shi, Kun; Campos‐Arceiz, Ahimsa

doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01561

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Given the ongoing geographic expansion of the elephant population in China (Bai et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2015) and the intense fragmentation of human‐dominated landscapes in their range (Liu et al, 2017), we encourage the use of GPS‐collar telemetry to better understand the spatial dynamics of the population. Studying movements was recently identified as one of the research priorities for elephant conservation in China (S. Chen et al, 2021). For future drone‐based wildlife monitoring, we encourage the systematic collection of locations at regular periods of time, which is advisable for the analyses of animal movement attributes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

China's wandering elephants: Integrating exceptional movements into conservation planning

Campos‐Arceiz

Torre

Wei

et al. 2022

Integrative Conservation

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In May‐June 2021 a herd of wild Asian elephants made global headlines when they trekked hundreds of km into areas where elephants had been absent for centuries, mobilizing a response of unprecedented scale. Here, we analyze the movement attributes and body condition of these elephants to understand this unusual behavior and its implications for megafauna conservation in the Anthropocene. We propose that these movements are a form of partial and irruptive nomadic behavior, although the data is also compatible with a failed attempt of dispersal. In their path to Kunming, the elephants made unusual habitat choices, using landscapes with higher nightlight intensity, and moving close to towns and villages, while avoiding areas with high forest cover, which we interpret as habituation to feeding on crops and lack of fear of people. Fifteen months after starting their journey, the elephants showed high body condition scores and had successfully delivered two babies, both indicators of good health, suggesting that their decision to leave their previous home range had paid off. In China, we recommend an elephant conservation strategy founded on area‐based and area‐specific measures, including protected areas, landscape connectivity, and the mitigation of human‐elephant conflicts, as well as preparedness for expectable population range expansions, potentially on the scale of hundreds of km, in the coming decades. Our study highlights the ecological and behavioral plasticity of elephants and the importance of integrating movement ecology in conservation planning, especially for wide‐ranging species.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

China's wandering elephants: Integrating exceptional movements into conservation planning

Campos‐Arceiz

Torre

Wei

et al. 2022

Integrative Conservation

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A multitude of aversive stimuli are used against elephants which they learn to avoid by associating it with a warning stimulus ( Table 2 ). However, large elephant populations live outside protected areas and boundaries created by humans do not always align with the ecological boundaries that elephants adhere to [ 22 , 118 , 138 , 139 ]. Thus, excluding animals from human habitats will not successfully mitigate HEC unless alternative routes and habitats are provided.…”

Section: Hec Mitigation Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various types of early warning systems are sometimes implemented to mitigate HEC, ranging from vigilance by farmers occupying traditional watchtowers to monitoring elephants using various remote sensing technologies ( Table 1 ). The use of more modern and emerging technologies, are gaining a lot of interest and if financial and technological barriers can be overcome, they would immensely help in avoiding encounters with elephants [ 118 ]. However, early warning systems would still require humans to respond and chase the elephants away unless they are coupled with an aversive stimulus of some kind.…”

Section: Hec Mitigation Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Current and Future Approaches to Mitigate Conflict between Humans and Asian Elephants: The Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices

Mel

Seneweera²,

Mel³

et al. 2022

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Asian elephants are a principal cause of human-wildlife conflict. This results in the death/injury of elephants and humans and large-scale crop and property damage. Most current human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation tools lack the flexibility to accommodate the ecological needs of elephants and are ineffective at reducing HEC in the long-term. Here we review common HEC mitigation tools used in Asia and the potential of Aversive Geofencing Devices (AGDs) to manage problem elephants. AGDs can be configured to monitor animal movements in real-time and deliver auditory warnings followed by electric stimuli whenever animals attempt to move across user-specified virtual boundaries. Thus, AGDs are expected to condition elephants to avoid receiving shocks and keep them away from virtually fenced areas, while providing alternative routes that can be modified if required. Studies conducted using AGDs with other species provide an overview of their potential in conditioning wild animals. We recommend that the efficacy and welfare impact of AGDs be evaluated using captive elephants along with public perception of using AGDs on elephants as a means of addressing the inherent deficiencies of common HEC mitigation tools. If elephants could be successfully conditioned to avoid virtual fences, then AGDs could resolve many HEC incidents throughout Asia.

show abstract

“…In order to protect the habitats of Asian elephants, many investigations have been conducted [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Early studies focused on the analyses of habitat status or suitability by using field survey data [9,11,[16][17][18], while recent studies began to model habitat suitability or change under climate change and human disturbance [6,14,15,[19][20][21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential Impacts of Climatic and Land Use Changes on Habitat Suitability and Protected Area Adequacy Across the Asian Elephant’s Range

Yang¹,

Ma²,

Jing³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The reduction of biodiversity loss is one of the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The protection of endangered species is critical for conserving global biodiversity. Asian elephants，as one of the last few mega-herbivores on Earth, are currently threatened by climate changes and anthropogenic modifications. The modelling of their living habitats is of top priority to the conservation of Asian elephant. In this study, we used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to identify the current and potential future habitats of Asian elephants in South and Southeast Asia. We performed analyses for future projections with 17 scenarios by using the present results as baseline. To optimise the modelling results, we delineated the core habitats by using the Core Mapper Tool and compared them with existing protected areas (PAs) through gap analysis. The results showed that the current total area of core habitats is 491,455 km2 in size and will be reduced to 332,544 km2 by 2090 under SSP585 (the shared socioeconomic pathway). The projection analysis under differential scenarios suggested that most of the core habitats in the current protected areas would remain stable and suitable for elephants in the future. However, the remaining 75.17% of the core habitats lay outside the current PAs, and finally we mapped approximately 219,545 km2 of suitable habitats as priority protected areas in the future. Although our model did not perform well in some regions, our analyses and findings still could provide useful references to the planning of protected areas and conservation of Asian elephant.

show abstract

A multistakeholder exercise to identify research and conservation priorities for Asian elephants in China

Cited by 11 publications

References 55 publications

China's wandering elephants: Integrating exceptional movements into conservation planning

China's wandering elephants: Integrating exceptional movements into conservation planning

Current and Future Approaches to Mitigate Conflict between Humans and Asian Elephants: The Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices

Differential Impacts of Climatic and Land Use Changes on Habitat Suitability and Protected Area Adequacy Across the Asian Elephant’s Range

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About