Evaluation of Wall‐Barriers to Manage Human Conflict with Asian Elephants in India. (25th June 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Natarajan, Lakshminarayanan; Kumar, Ankit; Qureshi, Qamar; Desai, Ajay A; Pandav, Bivash
• Is Part Of: Wildlife Society bulletin. Volume 45:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 215
• Page End: 220
• Publication Date: 2021-06-25
• Subjects: Crop loss -- Elephas maximus -- physical barrier -- rubble wall -- Uttarakhand; Wildlife management -- Periodicals; Wildlife conservation -- Periodicals; 333.9540973
• DOI: 10.1002/wsb.1195
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0091-7648

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) in the foothills of the Himalayas is one of the four major elephant ranges in India. In response to the escalating problem of crop raiding by elephants, the State Forest Department of Uttarakhand (UKFD) has built walls along the forest boundary in several protected areas and multiple‐use forest divisions. Given the high costs of constructing walls and the growing demand from farmers, the UKFD solicited an evaluation of wall efficacy. In response, we surveyed 98.4 km of walls in the TAL to assess frequency of breaches. We used generalized linear models to examine the influence of 7 explanatory variables on variation in breach frequencies between stretches of the wall. We observed 598 breaches and 87 weak spots in the 98.4 km of walls. Elephants caused 48% of the breaches, suggesting that walls in the TAL were not effective barriers against elephants. Explanatory variables of wall length, forest division, relative density of elephants, and land use along the wall stretches explained variation in wall breach frequencies. Based on our results, walls would only reduce elephant intrusion on 9 stretches (>1 km) totaling 11.8 km (approximately 12% of the wall stretches built in TAL). © 2021 The Wildlife Society. : Walls are among the physical barriers used for stopping wild elephants from raiding crop fields. Elephant proof walls built in Terai Arc Landscape, Uttarakhand, India, are not effective barriers. In areas where elephants have learned to break walls, forest departments should experiment with other physical barriers such as discarded train rails.