About This Project

African elephants damage crops if they breach park boundaries or threaten human life. Elephant-human conflict results. Development of passive, non-destructive elephant movement tools is important. Honeybee colonies deter elephants, but using large numbers of beehives to deter elephants from large large areas poses logistic issues. We hypothesize that honeybee alarm pheromones can be used to deter elephants from the treated area.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Human-Elephant conflict situations, such as crop raiding, can be reduced using active beehives which deter elephants from breaching fences. Elephants are adverse to being stung on the ears, around the eyes and in the trunk, and are very effectively repelled by bees. Deploying large numbers of beehives is problematic though, for logistic reasons, as bee-care during dry periods involves high maintenance. We will contribute to developing passive means of preventing elephants from straying where they have negative interactions with humans using bee alarm chemicals as deterrents. We have demonstrated African elephant repellence from a prototype bee alarm pheromone blend. We seek to expand the project to examine improved pheromone blends, and field deployment methods for optimal effect.

What is the significance of this project?

Elephants are often killed or otherwise negatively impacted when they interact negatively with humans. Elephant impacts of human activities such as farming can be extremely detrimental and life threatening to the farmers. Our project will contribute to developing an integrated approach to preventing elephant impacts, and will decrease human-elephant conflicts. Throughout the project, the elephants will be subjected to stimuli that occur naturally in their environment, that produce a deterrence response. Developing an effective new option for augmenting existing methods for elephant movement management will ultimately contribute to improved elephant welfare, enhanced livelihoods of farmers (often subsistence farmers), and improved elephant conservation.

What are the goals of the project?

We hypothesize that honeybee alarm pheromones can be used to deter elephants from the treated area. We will optimize prototype pheromone blends for field use, conducting field trials on refined SPLAT blends of alarm pheromone components. Field weathering and durability of the formulated deterrents will be measured under field conditions. Elution rate of compounds in the blend will be quantified. Distance at which detection and repellence occurs will be quantified. Direct observation and camera traps will be used to collect data.
We also include an educational component for local communities (in Africa) in the project. This funding effort seeks to raise funds to address the optimization of pheromone blends, and preliminary studies on field deployment.