Elephants are herbivores and hence have no reason to attack man unless it’s in self-defence. However, as both families and bull elephants migrate through the landscape looking for food and water they will take advantage of any juicy crops they come across. This is where the conflict begins, and is what we are working to eradicate.

Elephants in our main study site in Kenya, are not confined to national parks and reserves hence interactions with farmers, and specifically crop raiding by elephants, pose serious social, political, economic and conservation problems in Kenya as it does in many other parts of Africa.

Unfortunately both people and elephants are sometimes killed due to conflict over resources. Elephants that are wounded are often very dangerous and can go wild with pain, which poses a great threat to anyone in their path. Fatal wounds resulting in the death of an elephant is not only illegal, and should be avoided at all costs, but also causes stress within the family unit. Elephants have long memories and there is some evidence that elephants who have lost a family member due to conflict or culling may become more aggressive to humans in the future.

With years of historical data on migratory routes captured by our collared elephants, our research on a landscape scale focuses on keeping key migration corridors open and clear of farms and development to reduce the chance of conflict incidents developing.

On a local level, research efforts are now focused on finding effective farmer-managed deterrents that are both socially and economically suitable especially in ‘conflict’ zones where effective electric fences to separate humans from elephants are neither feasible nor affordable.