One stable’s novel approach to mitigating human-elephant conflict near Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Abstract

Human-elephant conflict in the areas surrounding Chitwan National Park, Nepal, remains a concern. A unique cause of such conflict is the incursion of wild bull elephants into human-dominated landscapes in search of female elephants. One elephant owner adopted a novel method to mitigate conflict arising from such incursions by housing a female and her offspring within the community forest protected area. While this eliminated male incursion into human-dominated areas, it had to be abandoned after eight months, as authorities did not permit it.