The efficacy of interventions to protect crops from raiding elephants

Abstract

Both African elephants (Loxodonta spp.) and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) across their range come into conflict with people because of their crop-raiding behavior, which presents profound impediments to farmer livelihoods. In response, a series of interventions, designed to reduce elephant crop raiding have been applied. Based on an extensive review of elephant crop-raiding studies published over a 31-year period, we identified four primary categories of interventions including: (i) detection efforts; (ii) preemptive measures; (iii) fencing and trenches; and (iv) deterrent techniques. The interventions reported to be most effective involved chili peppers (i.e., fences, spray, and briquettes) and crop guarding coupled with deterrents. The extent to which these interventions can be applied more widely is unclear as only two studies examined efficacy across sites in more than one country. Thus, future inquiry should evaluate the ability of effective interventions, or indeed a combination of interventions, to be applied across the range of elephants to reduce crop raiding at scale.

Integrating Social Justice into Higher Education Conservation Science

“…We also found that at the start of the course, the students did not perceive wildlife to pose a threat to local people. This too shifted to neutral in the end of course survey (figure 2 ), indicative of the students’ emerging appreciation of the variety of negative consequences that local people can experience from wildlife (Redpath et al 2013 , Montgomery et al 2022 ).…”

“…We interpret these results to demonstrate student perspectives that local people should be empowered to be active participants in the management process. Interdisciplinary collaborations involving management authorities, conservationists, and local people are one of the tenets of the HHCC framework and are necessary for emergent approaches seeking to position local people at the heart of conservation practice (Montgomery et al 2022 ).…”

“…We were drawn to this instrument, in particular, because it evaluated the roles and responsibilities of various people (i.e., local people, conservationists, and management authorities) within the context of human–wildlife conflict. Conflict occurs when human–wildlife interactions yield negative outcomes for one or both parties (Montgomery et al 2022 ). People can experience negative outcomes from wildlife interaction including risks to human security and private property (i.e., crop raiding, food insecurity, livestock depredation, and damage to infrastructure; Redpath et al 2013 , Montgomery et al 2022 ).…”

“…Conflict occurs when human–wildlife interactions yield negative outcomes for one or both parties (Montgomery et al 2022 ). People can experience negative outcomes from wildlife interaction including risks to human security and private property (i.e., crop raiding, food insecurity, livestock depredation, and damage to infrastructure; Redpath et al 2013 , Montgomery et al 2022 ). In response to these risks, people may retaliate against wildlife in the form of killing or poaching, both of which are illegal (Moreto 2019 ).…”

A synthesis of human conflict with an African megaherbivore; the common hippopotamus

“…Olfactory deterrents may be natural or synthetic. Much is known about the use of chili pepper to deter elephants, for example (Montgomery et al, 2021), although hippos may be less sensitive to peppers. Elephants also show aversion to olfactory predator signals (Valenta et al, 2021), and it is likely that hippos, too, would show aversion to these.…”