The efficacy of interventions to protect crops from raiding elephants

Robert A Montgomery,Philip Muruthi,Jamie Raupp,Ashley Greenleaf,Tutilo Mudumba,Methodius Mukhwana

doi:10.1007/s13280-021-01587-x

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.

Highlights

In an increasingly urbanized and human-dominated world, wildlife often compete with people for access to land and food resources
Our literature review returned a total of 280 studies, published between 1988 and 2019, that broadly examined elephant crop raiding, human-elephant conflict, and elephant ecology
Upon examination of each of these studies, we found 185 of them to be inconsistent with our research objectives

Summary

Introduction

In an increasingly urbanized and human-dominated world, wildlife often compete with people for access to land and food resources. Keywords Coexistence Á Conservation Á Crop raiding Á Elephant Á Human-wildlife conflict Á Interventions We recorded: (i) the research site; country, and continent where the study was located; (ii) the type of intervention implemented to reduce elephant crop raiding; (iii) whether the cost of the application and maintenance of each intervention was provided; and (iv) the reported effectiveness of that specific intervention.

Results

Conclusion