RESEARCH ARTICLE Using Poaching Levels and Elephant Distribution to Assess the Conservation Efficacy of Private, Communal and

Efforts to curb elephant poaching have focused on reducing demand, confiscating ivory and boosting security patrols in elephant range. Where land is under multiple uses and owner-ship, determining the local poaching dynamics is important for identifying successful con-servation models. Using 2,403 verified elephant, Loxodonta africana, mortality records collected from 2002 to 2012 and the results of aerial total counts of elephants conducted in 2002, 2008 and 2012 for the Laikipia-Samburu ecosystem of northern Kenya, we sought to determine the influence of land ownership and use on diurnal elephant distribution and on poaching levels. We show that the annual proportions of illegally killed (i.e., poached) ele-phants increased over the 11 years of the study, peaking at 70 % of all recorded deaths in 2012. The type of land use was more strongly related to levels of poaching than was the type of ownership. Private ranches, comprising only 13 % of land area, hosted almost half of the elephant population and had significantly lower levels of poaching than other land use types except for the officially designated national reserves (covering only 1.6 % of elephant range in the ecosystem). Communal grazing lands hosted significantly fewer elephant