TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gross, Eva M.
A1  - Lahkar, Bibhuti P.
A1  - Subedi, Naresh
A1  - Nyirenda, Vincent R.
A1  - Klebelsberg, Eva
A1  - Jakoby, Oliver
T1  - Elephants in the village: causes and consequences of property damage in Asia and Africa
T2  - Conservation Science and Practice
N2  - In recent years, reports of elephants causing damage in rural villages by destroying houses and foraging on stored food have been increasing, but little is known about the determinants and magnitude of this damage. In this study, we have examined the extent of property damage by elephants (Loxodonta africana and Elephas maximus), in one African and two Asian study areas over a six‐year period. A total of 1,172 damaged constructions were observed on site, involving detailed damage assessment by trained enumerators and standardized interviews with witnesses. Depending on the study area, between 67.1 and 86.4% of damage events were attributed to single, individual elephants or pairs of males. The majority of properties were damaged in search for food (62.5–76.7% respectively). Property damage caused higher mean losses than crop damage on farmland in all study areas. Results suggest that property damage by elephants has been largely underestimated and needs to form a focus in future human–elephant conflict research. We suggest a need to reduce the attractiveness of villages by storing food in locked and safe places, away from sleeping areas and to foster the development of elephant safe stores, appropriate to the particular cultural background of the target area.
KW  - attractive crops
KW  - conflict mitigation
KW  - elephant damage
KW  - elephant‐safe stores
KW  - human–elephant conflict
KW  - land‐use planning
KW  - property damage
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/57213
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-572132
SN  - 2578-4854
VL  - 3.2021
IS  - Article e343
PB  - Wiley
ER  -