Poaching and Human-elephant Conflict: A Destructive Duo. How Poaching May Alter Male Elephant Society and Indirectly Influence Human-elephant Conflict

The uncertain future of African elephants (Loxodonta africana) is currently a popular issue in conservation circles, largely due to the ongoing poaching crisis. Compounding the threat of illegal offtake are the added pressures of habitat loss and human-elephant conflict (HEC). HEC specifically is a complex challenge to conservation and a major threat to elephants across their entire range, leading not only to retaliation killings but the erosion of local support for conservation. While the issues of poaching and human-elephant conflict have been considered separate issues, an examination of elephant behaviour and HEC under a political ecology framework highlights the possibility that these processes are becoming increasingly interconnected. Elephant bull society, specifically the influence of mature males, aids not only in proper social development of adolescents but controls musth in younger males. As older males have the largest and thus most desirable tusks, the ivory trade presents a unique challenge to bull society by removing the positive influence of older conspecifics. This stifles the ability of young males to learn proper foraging and leads to early musth. As pre-musth males must forage heavily, and foraging behaviour is learnt by association with older males, the ivory trade may lead to heavy crop raiding by young males and thus exacerbate HEC. When we consider that the social and economic situations that are thought to drive poaching activity are the same as those that both put people at higher risk of HEC and drive retaliation killings, it is likely that poaching influences levels of HEC