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Wildlife conservation is a complex issue especially when it involves large carnivores or mega-herbivores that are conflict-prone. Karnataka state in southern India is known to harbor high density of wild elephants. This conservation success story also has opportunity costs for communities living in close proximity to elephants. Despite the fact that human-elephant conflict is a serious conservation and social issue, there is little quantitative understanding of conflict especially over large areas. Here we conduct the first analysis of human-elephant conflict distribution, severity and explanatory factors over the entire state of Karnataka. We use data from the state forest department records on villages that experience conflict, compensation payments made by the government, elephant densities, forest cover and perimeter, and presence of physical barriers to mitigate elephant conflict. In total, 60,939 incidences of crop loss were reported and US$ 2.99 m paid in compensation during April 2008-March 2011. A total of 91 people were killed by elephants and 101 elephants died in retaliatory killings during the study period. A total of 9.4 % of the state's geographic area covering 25 of the 42 forest administrative divisions were affected. There was no significant difference in conflict incidences or compensation given between protected areas and non-protected areas. There was no correlation between conflict incidences/unit area and elephant density, forest cover, forest perimeter of protected areas and presence of physical barriers. The results depict the importance of efficient management of physical barriers, conserving key habitat linkages, and acts as baseline data for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Success stories in Indian conservation also carry opportunity costs in the form of human–wildlife conflicts, especially to people living in close proximity with wildlife. In India, human–wildlife conflict is a serious challenge to wildlife conservation, which needs a much-improved scientific and social understanding. In this study, I assess the patterns and correlates of human–elephant conflicts around Nagarahole National Park, southern India. I hypothesised that human and livestock demographic variables, and factors such as cropping patterns, availability of irrigated land around the national park, and protected area frontage to be the underlying correlates of conflict. Using applications and documents filed with the wildlife department by affected farmers during the period 2006–2009, I analysed crops affected, compensation payments made by the Government, spatio-temporal patterns of conflict and identified the key correlates of human–elephant conflict. 98.8% of the conflict incidences occurred in villages that lie within 6km from the national park boundary. Of the 26 crop types affected by elephants, finger millet, maize, cotton, paddy and sugarcane formed 86.34% of the total crop losses. Conflict frequencies were highest during August–November, a period when there was a decrease in rainfall and important crops such as finger millet, maize and paddy were ripening. Multiple linear regression results suggest that villages with higher protected area frontage and unirrigated land were key variables underlying conflict frequency. However, results from this study suggests that there are other probable factors such as elephant behaviour, movement patterns and/or maintenance of physical barriers which could be more important determinants of conflict. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the deaths of crop-raiding elephants Elephas maximus in Karnataka, India. It notes that most of the deaths was due to electrocution. It contends that the inappropriate management of elephant habitat could be one of the reasons for high human-elephant conflict. Moreover, it says that wildlife conservation problems can be minimize by raising awareness and sensitizing communities, police and electricity companies regarding illegal electric fences.

Karnataka state in southern India supports a globally significant—and the country’s largest—population of the Asian elephant Elephas maximus . A reliable map of Asian elephant distribution and measures of spatial variation in their abundance, both vital needs for conservation and management action, are unavailable not only in Karnataka, but across its global range. Here, we use various data gathered between 2000 and 2015 to map the distribution of elephants in Karnataka at the scale of the smallest forest management unit, the ‘beat’, while also presenting data on elephant dung density for a subset of ‘elephant beats.’ Elephants occurred in 972 out of 2855 forest beats of Karnataka. Sixty percent of these 972 beats—and 55% of the forest habitat—lay outside notified protected areas (PAs), and included lands designated for agricultural production and human dwelling. While median elephant dung density inside protected areas was nearly thrice as much as outside, elephants routinely occurred in or used habitats outside PAs where human density, land fraction under cultivation, and the interface between human-dominated areas and forests were greater. Based on our data, it is clear that India’s framework for elephant conservation—which legally protects the species wherever it occurs, but protects only some of its habitats—while being appropriate in furthering their conservation within PAs, seriously falters in situations where elephants reside in and/or seasonally use areas outside PAs. Attempts to further elephant conservation in production and dwelling areas have extracted high costs in human, elephant, material and monetary terms in Karnataka. In such settings, conservation planning exercises are necessary to determine where the needs of elephants—or humans—must take priority over the other, and to achieve that in a manner that is based not only on reliable scientific data but also on a process of public reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]