Human-wildlife conflict is increasing as humans encroach on animal habitats — and the most dangerous can be elephants that eat crops, attack people.
This competition for resources has cost many human and animal lives.
African and Asian elephants are particularly prone to conflict as they often range outside the boundaries of protected areas into human settlements and farms.
Farming communities incur substantial costs as foraging elephants trample and eat their food crops.
These jumbo raids often lead to retaliatory killing of elephants, which can significantly undermine conservation efforts.
A number of methods have been tried unsuccessfully to keep elephants away from crops and villages. These include banging pots and pans, setting bonfires and using flashing and other kinds of lights.
Elephants eventually become habituated to these threats and eventually just forge ahead to raid.
Physical barriers such as electric fences and trenches have proved effective but can be expensive to erect and maintain. Highly intelligent mammals often are able to find weaknesses in fences to get through them, or go around them.
However, some of these are difficult to implement and expensive to maintain.
Elephants have an excellent sense of smell and possess nearly 2,000 olfactory receptors — five times more than humans.
This fact has led to increased interest in finding olfactory methods to keep them away from farms and settlements.
Chilli peppers, for example, irritate elephants noses and eyes.
Researchers have developed a concoction that potentially could mitigate the increasing problem of elephant raids.
It is made from chillies, garlic, ginger, dung and rotten eggs, all widely available.
This delightful concoction is left for ferment and mature until it's really repulsive to elephants (and the rest of us).
it's placed in plastic bottles with plenty of holes so the sell wafts widely in the breeze.
Recent trials conducted by WildAid and Save the Elephants in 40 farms in Kenya and Uganda could be an affordable breakthrough.
In Kenya, the repellent was tested on 10 farms in Lower Sagalla, on the border of Tsavo East National Park, part of the Tsavo Conservation Area.
It is home to Kenya's single largest elephant population of about 15,000 individuals.
Trials in Kenya during peak crop-raiding seasons between 2019 and 2021 showed the repellent was 63 percent effective.
On 24 occasions, elephants entered the farms, but on 15 occasions, there was no raiding of crops in fields protected by the smelly fence.
Much higher rates of raiding occurred in fields that were unprotected.
The repellent was most effective when the containers were freshly filled or the crops freshly sprayed.
The containers are strung on wires on the fences surrounding fields or settlements.
When the pungent smell begins to dissipate after seven or eight weeks, the repellent is less effective. Time to mix up another batch.
Heavy rains can also wash the repellent off crops, requiring more application
The trials showed the foul-smelling liquid, if kept nice and smelly, significantly reduced elephant crop-raiding.
In northern Uganda, trials on 30 farms on the border of Murchison Falls National Park showed the repellent was 82 percent effective in deterring crop raids
Smelly elephant repellent has potential to help farmers in Kenya and Uganda by significantly reducing elephant crop-raiding
Between October 2018 and July 2020, elephants made 309 attempts to enter the farms to find food, but on 254 occasions, they were repelled. The crops were saved.
On some farms, the smelly liquid was sprayed directly on the crops, while on others the repellent was left in reclaimed plastic bottles hung from a simple one-strand fence. The bottles must have lots of holes so the scent can disperse.
The study, published in 'From Conflict to Coexistence', a special edition of 'Diversity;, presents the results from the first full-field trials of the smelly elephant repellent on wild African elephants (Loxodonta Africana).
Lead author Lydia Tiller said as human-elephant conflict increases across the continent, it's urgent to find an affordable, effective and easy to produce repellent to protect elephants and humans.
Tiller is Save the Elephants’ research and science manager.
"Smelly elephant repellent has the potential to help farmers across Kenya and Uganda by significantly reducing elephant crop-raiding," she said.
"In fact, the trials of the repellent were so effective that almost all of the farmers involved in the study said they would use the repellent again."
Farmers were also enthusiastic about the repellent. More than 80 percent of those interviewed after the trials said, unprompted, they wanted to use the concoction again.
Many farms also said the spray had pesticide and fertiliser qualities and kept away buffalo, cattle, squirrels and other animals.
WildAid’s East Africa representative Marion Robertson, another author who led the study, said it showed the smelly repellent is effective, relatively cheap and easy to produce.
They are now exploring ways of scaling up the smelly repellent, looking for a market-based approach that would make the product widely available.
(Edited by V. Graham)
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