Wildlife managers ignore previous knowledge at great risk: the case of Rivaldo, the iconic wild Asian Elephant Elephas maximus L. of the Sigur Region, Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, India

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Management of wildlife depends mostly on scientific data; ignoring this can lead to unintended consequences. We take the case study of the wild male Asian Elephant Rivaldo of the Sigur Region, who was translocated out of his range. Rivaldo returned to his home range within a few days, which could have been expected if scientific publications had been consulted. We suggest that a simple checklist of relevant publications can help park managers to decide on a proper management procedure. We also used a simple Bayesian framework to visually show how the probability of predicting a management outcome is increased by prior knowledge. The expensive and risky effort to relocate the elephant could have been avoided altogether if prior knowledge had been taken into consideration.