Chilli-briquettes modify the temporal behaviour of elephants, but not their numbers

Pozo, Rocío Alfaro; Coulson, Tim; McCulloch, Graham; Stronza, Amanda; Songhurst, Anna

doi:10.1017/s0030605317001235

Cited by 22 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Agricultural crops often have higher nutrient content than natural resources favored by wild herbivores (Osborn 2004), which may attract them to crop fields near the Okavango River (Pozo et al 2017a(Pozo et al , 2018. In addition, crop fields are generally located between areas used by elephants during the day and the Okavango River, which elephants visit at night to minimize overlap with human activities (Pozo et al 2017b(Pozo et al , 2018. Although elephants inflicted most of the reported crop damage, hippopotamuses were also held responsible for damaging crops during the wet season (Kanga et al 2013;Mekuka et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods

Pozo

LeFlore

Duthie

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

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Conflicts between the interests of agriculture and wildlife conservation are a major threat to biodiversity and human well-being globally. Addressing such conflicts requires a thorough understanding of the impacts associated with living alongside protected wildlife. Despite this, most studies reporting on human-wildlife impacts and the strategies used to mitigate them focus on a single species, thus oversimplifying often complex systems of human-wildlife interactions. We sought to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of impacts by multiple co-occurring species on agricultural livelihoods in the eastern Okavango Delta Panhandle in northern Botswana through the use of a database of 3264 wildlife-incident reports recorded from 2009 to 2015 by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. Eight species (African elephants [Loxodonta africana], hippopotamuses [Hippopotamus amphibious], lions [Panthera leo], cheetah [Acinonyx jubatus], African wild dogs [Lycaon pictus], hyenas [Crocuta crocuta], leopards [Panthera pardus], and crocodiles [Crocodylus niloticus]) appeared on incident reports, of which 56.5% were attributed to elephants. Most species were associated with only 1 type of damage (i.e., either crop damage or livestock loss). Carnivores were primarily implicated in incident reports related to livestock loss, particularly toward the end of the dry season (May-October). In contrast, herbivores were associated with crop-loss incidents during the wet season (November-April). Our results illustrate how local communities can face distinct livelihood challenges from different species at different times of the year. Such a multispecies assessment has important implications for the design of conservation interventions aimed at addressing the costs of living with wildlife and thereby mitigation of the underlying conservation conflict. Our spatiotemporal, multispecies approach is widely applicable to other regions where sustainable and long-term solutions to conservation conflicts are needed for local communities and biodiversity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods

Pozo

LeFlore

Duthie

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

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“…Selection of areas far from humans could possibly be a strategy to avoid disturbance which is associated with edge effects, for example human–wildlife conflicts (King, Lawrence, Douglas‐Hamilton, & Vollrath, ) or poaching (Muposhi et al, ). Additionally, in most human‐dominated landscapes, the way elephants utilise their habitats can be affected as a result of human settlement (Pozo, Coulson, McCulloch, Stronza, & Songhurst, ). This is usually through urbanisation or clearing large parcels of vegetated land for agriculture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human settlement drives African elephant (Loxodonta africana) movement in the Sebungwe Region, Zimbabwe

Mpakairi

Ndaimani

Kuvawoga³

et al. 2019

Afr J Ecol

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Understanding the key drivers that influence the potential distribution of herbivore species in changing landscapes has been at the centre of enquiry in wildlife science for many decades. This knowledge is particularly important for keystone species like the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) whose population is declining even in conservation areas. The Sebungwe Region is part of the Kavango‐Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area and supports ~4,000 elephants. The Sebungwe Region has lost an estimated 76% of its elephant population over the years. This study aimed to determine how the elephant distribution in the Sebungwe Region was affected by human settlement and whether the patches for elephant distribution were large enough for elephant habitation. The prediction of the potential distribution of the elephant was based on presence‐only data modelled through an ensemble algorithm that combined several candidate models to enhance predictive ability. We observed that human settlement drives the potential distribution of elephants in the Sebungwe Region (test AUC = 0.95), and patches from the model were on average <1.5 km2. Our results provide initial insights into the key habitat factors that drive distribution of elephants in the Sebungwe landscape. Future conservation of the elephant could benefit from our study through systematic planning of settlements, which might help minimise human interaction with wildlife.

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“…) and briquettes (Pozo et al. ); and early‐warning systems with trip wires (Gunaryadi & Hedges ); and geofencing (Wall et al. ).…”

Section: Reporting Mitigation and Prevention Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking assessment of success of mitigation strategies for elephant‐induced crop damage

Snyder

Rentsch

2020

Conservation Biology

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Crop damage is the most common impact of negative interactions between people and elephants and poses a significant threat to rural livelihoods and conservation efforts. Numerous approaches to mitigate and prevent crop damage have been implemented throughout Africa and Asia. Despite the documented high efficacy of many approaches, losses remain common, and in many areas, damage is intensifying. We examined the literature on effectiveness of crop-damage-mitigation strategies and identified key gaps in evaluations. We determined there is a need to better understand existing solutions within affected communities and to extend evaluations of effectiveness beyond measurement of efficacy to include rates of and barriers to adoption. We devised a conceptual framework for evaluating effectiveness that incorporates the need for increased emphasis on adoption and can be used to inform the design of future crop-damage mitigation assessments for elephants and conflict species more widely. The ability to prevent crop loss in practice is affected by both the efficacy of a given approach and rates of uptake among target users. We identified the primary factors that influence uptake as local attitudes, sustainability, and scalability and examined each of these factors in detail. We argue that even moderately efficacious interventions may make significant progress in preventing damage if widely employed and recommend that wherever possible scientists and practitioners engage with communities to build on and strengthen existing solutions and expertise. When new approaches are required, they should align with local attitudes and fit within limitations on labor, financial requirements, and technical capacity.

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Chilli-briquettes modify the temporal behaviour of elephants, but not their numbers

Cited by 22 publications

References 26 publications

A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods

A multispecies assessment of wildlife impacts on local community livelihoods

Human settlement drives African elephant (Loxodonta africana) movement in the Sebungwe Region, Zimbabwe

Rethinking assessment of success of mitigation strategies for elephant‐induced crop damage

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