The use of audio playback to deter crop-raiding Asian elephants

Abstract

Human-elephant conflict (HEC) and poaching are the foremost threats to the survival of elephants (African, Loxodonta africana; Asian, Elephas maximus) in their natural environments. Reducing HEC has the potential to save hundreds of elephant and human lives annually across Asia and Africa. Lone adult male elephants are the principal crop raiders; therefore, we investigated the effectiveness of a variety of audio playbacks at deterring 22 wild adult male Asian elephants from food sources in a wildlife reserve in southern Sri Lanka in January, 2011. Food was provided ad libitum, and the reactions of the elephants in response to various stimuli were recorded and analyzed. Vocalizations from a wild Asian elephant matriarchal group resulted in a flight response in 65% of trials conducted, in contrast to a control sound, a chainsaw, which produced no flight responses from any adult male. We demonstrated that audio playbacks could be used as a short-term deterrent to wild adult male Asian elephants from crop raiding; thus, providing a simple, natural, cost-effective, and humane way of mitigating HEC. Ó 2016 The Wildlife Society.

Elephants in the neighborhood: patterns of crop-raiding by Asian elephants within a fragmented landscape of Eastern India

“…Village elders and community leaders should also discourage human drunkenness and provocative behavior such as harassing or chasing elephants within their respective localities. Solar and electric fences can be set up around crop fields, human settlements ( Hedges & Gunaryadi, 2010 ; Davies et al, 2011 ; Wijayagunawardane et al, 2016 ) and their effectiveness to deter elephants should be evaluated within such areas. Traditional crop guarding measures should be integrated with early warning systems (seismic and motion sensor triggered proximity alarms) and beehive fencing around identified hotspots ( Fernando et al, 2008 ; King et al, 2017 ).…”

Human-Elephant Conflict: A Review of Current Management Strategies and Future Directions

“…Physical exclusion methods such as electric fences and trenches are commonly used to deter elephants from entering farmland and human settlements. Substantial costs of construction and long-term maintenance confer challenges for larger scale application of these physical barriers, especially in fragmented landscapes with high forest/farm frontage (Kioko et al, 2008;Perera, 2009;Wijayagunawardane et al, 2016). Long-term effectiveness may be further hindered by design, responses to reports of fence breaks and fence-breaking animals, and overall PA enforcement and management (Graham et al, 2009b;Massey et al, 2014).…”

“…High tech acoustic deterrents remain problematic too. Audio playbacks of threatening sounds like wild cat growls, human shouts, and vocalizations from elephant matriarchal groups have only been tested as short-term and short-distance elephants repellents (Thuppil and Coss, 2016;Wijayagunawardane et al, 2016). Some studies show that elephants quickly learn to tolerate these sounds and return to raid crops (Sikes, 1971;Moss, 1988).…”

The falling out man and the wild - a review of influential factors, causes, impacts, and strategies for minimizing human-wildlife conflict

“…Electric fences and trenches are other kinds of physical barriers and are used to deter elephants from agricultural fields and human settlements. Considerable costs have to be spent on the construction and long-term maintenance of these fences (Perera 2009;Kioko et al 2008;Wijayagunawardane et al 2016).…”

“…Fernando et al (2005), Gunaryadi et al (2017), have mentioned that different types of acoustic deterrents are practiced by farmers such as guarding crop, scaring crop-raiding animals away, yelling, setting off firecrackers, carbide cannons, throwing stones, or other things to hit an animal which are effective to keep animals away from the farm fields (Davies et al 2011). Creating threatening sounds using audio playback also another type of method used to chase crop-raiding animals but it is effective only for short terms and short distance due to quick learning, habituation, and adoption to those by animals and returns to raid crop (Thuppil and Coss 2016;Wijayagunawardane et al 2016;Moss 1988;Gamage and Wijesundara 2014). From history, dogs were the first animal used as a guard to protect the herds in different parts of the world.…”