City life or farm life? When elephants adapt to different human development
Radboud University Nijmegen / Phys.Org
July 28, 2022
See link https://phys.org/news/2022-07-city-life-farm-elephants-human.html
for photo.
The movement of elephants through wildlife corridors is directly impacted
by differing forms of human pressures and development, new research by
Elephants Without Borders (EWB) and Radboud University shows. Their study,
published today in Frontiers in Conservation, is the first that takes an
in-depth look at how varying land use affects elephants and their use of
wildlife corridors.
From 2012 to 2019, the researchers monitored elephants' movements through
six wildlife corridors using motion-detected camera traps in two different
human-dominated landscapes: the townships of Kasane, Botswana and
Kazungula, Zambia; and the farming villages of the Chobe Enclave of
Botswana, both located in the Chobe District.
The study shows that various land use seemingly affects when elephants use
wildlife corridors on an hourly basis. Elephants in agricultural areas
largely moved through the corridors predominantly nocturnally, when humans
are less active, compared to the urban corridors, where humans and
elephants actively mostly overlap.
"This is the first study of this type that takes an in-depth look at
comparing how varying land use affects elephant movements and their use of
wildlife corridors," states lead author Tempe Adams of EWB. Increasing
human development and changes in land use restrict wildlife's access to
resources. It also increases competition and conflict between animals and
people. This is one of the largest conservation challenges facing the
future of elephants in both Africa and Asia. The designation and
maintenance of wildlife corridors is a fundamental wildlife management tool
to allow both development and conservation to continue.
"This was a great opportunity to link our work on examining human pressures
on biodiversity at Radboud University with the conservation work being done
by Elephants Without Borders," says Marlee Stevens, assistant professor at
the Department of Environmental Science of Radboud University and one of
the authors of the paper. "Our results show that elephants alter their
behavior in human-modified landscapes, but their response varies depending
on the human disturbance."
The study highlights the need to consider wildlife daily activity patterns
in and around cities, towns, and farming areas, for conservation and
environmental management planning. "What is truly remarkable is that we
found elephants do not perceive all human development the same way, but
they are adjusting their behaviors to adapt to the variations and human
pressure," says Adams. "It also further highlights the need for transparent
documentation of human pressure within and around protected wildlife areas,
which is critical to assist in the conservation of species."
*More information: *Who is adjusting to whom? Differences in elephant diel
activity in wildlife corridors across different humanmodified landscapes,
Frontiers in Conservation Science (2022).
*DOI: *10.3389/fcosc.2022.872472
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