Abstract:
Crop raiding by African elephants
Loxodonta africana
erodes local tolerance for elephants and thereby impedes conservation efforts, so solutions are urgently required.
Within conflict zones, crop raiding is not distributed equally amongst farms, which may
be a result of variation in local physical or geographical factors, or in farmers’ efforts to
defend their fields. Understanding the efficacy of local conflict mitigation methods is
important, but few quantitative evaluations exist.
Using a comparative survey of raided and non-raided farms in Transmara District,
Kenya, and multivariate logistic and linear regression analyses, we explored a range of
factors affecting (i) the susceptibility of farms to elephant crop raiding and (ii) the
amount of crop damage once elephants had entered a field.
The results revealed that farms that had been habitually raided in the past were more
likely to be raided during the study period, as were those that were larger and bordered
by hedges or fences. Greater guarding effort increased the likelihood that elephants were
detected prior to entry and decreased the likelihood of successful crop raiding, as did the
use of fire and noise.
However, there was an interaction between physical and human factors; larger farms
used more advanced barrier methods at the expense of guarding effort. Farmers’ efforts
did not appear to diminish the damage inflicted once elephants had entered a field.
5.
A subsequent experimental test confirmed these results; the application of enhanced
early warning and guarding effort on previously raided farms reduced incidents of crop
raiding by 89·6% over 2 years in comparison with a control group of farms.
Synthesis and applications
. These results suggest that early detection of elephants
approaching fields, increased guarding effort, and the use of active deterrents could form
the basis of an effective mitigation strategy regardless of location and the physical attributes of a farm. Validating the results of predictive models through participatory mitigation trials serves to demonstrate effective solutions to farmers themselves. Researchers
and practitioners should be encouraged to replicate such field trials over broader spatial and
temporal scales and to find means to encourage farmers to take up appropriate solutions.