Elephant Scar Prevalence in the Kasigau Wildlife Corridor, Kenya: Echoes of Human-Elephant Conflict

Simple Summary African elephants commonly enter farmlands across their ranges and trample or consume crops, creating conflicts with farmers and challenges for conservation priorities. Farmers may retaliate and injure elephants, but the extent to which this occurs is relatively unknown. However, scars found on elephants may be evidence of past negative interactions. The objective of our study was to describe the presence of scars in an elephant population in the Greater Tsavo Ecosystem, a region of high human-elephant conflict in Kenya. We monitored and catalogued a population in the Kasigau Wildlife Corridor from 2017 to 2021, noting the number of scars and their placement on individuals. Presumably, evidence of conflict between elephants is more likely to be found on the head or rump areas of elephants, whereas humans are most likely to injure the body of elephants. We found that adult males were much more likely to have scars than adult females, older males were more likely to have scars than younger males, and more scars were located on the body as opposed to the rump and head. Understanding how many elephants in a population have scars and the location of scars can describe the potential level of human-elephant conflict in a population. This valuable information can be used to better understand the level of conflict in a community and aid in management recommendations. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) compromises crop security and threatens elephant conservation. Most commonly, HEC manifests as crop-foraging as elephants modify natural foraging strategies to incorporate crops. Farmers may retaliate by frightening or harming elephants, leaving scars from inflicted wounds. We assessed the prevalence and distribution of scars on the bodies of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) observed in the Kasigau Wildlife Corridor (KWC), part of the Greater Tsavo Ecosystem of Kenya, where conflict is prevalent. We surmised that scars on the body are largely a result of HEC as opposed to scars on the rump or head, which we attributed primarily to elephant-elephant conflict. We hypothesized that: (1) male elephants would have more scars than females; (2) older males would be more likely to have scars than younger males; and (3) most scars would be located on the bodies of elephants. We assessed scars from a photographic catalogue of elephants from the KWC. In line with our hypotheses, male elephants were more likely to have scars than females (32% of males compared to 6% of females); older males had significantly more scars than younger males (61% compared to 24%); and the majority of scars (89%) were located on the body. Scar presence may be useful as an animal-centered indicator to estimate the prevalence and demographic patterns of HEC.