Conservationists hope chillies and hi-tech geophones will help protect fields from elephants in Congo Republic, where villagers are fed up with pachyderms eating their crops.
BRAZZAVILLE -- Conservationists hope chillies and hi-tech geophones will help protect fields from elephants in Congo Republic, where villagers are fed up with pachyderms eating their crops.Villagers impatient with delayed government compensation payments for damaged fields briefly held up two Forestry Ministry workers in the northwest region of Sangha last week to press their demands for more help, officials said.
Forest elephants from the nearby Odzala-Koukoua National Park have eaten crops from dozens of fields in the area over the last few months, raising the possibility of a targeted cull to kill troop leaders which lead other animals into the fields in two problem areas.
Gabriel Valere Aime Eteka, cabinet director at the Forestry Ministry, said a cull had been authorised in principle but would require a technical report before any elephants were killed.
"Authorised culls are only a temporary solution, because once you kill the dominant bulls, others take over to lead the troops," he said.
"At the moment we are looking for more sustainable solutions, including building barriers, and there are certain smells which can make the elephants run away," he said.
The damage has been estimated at 27 million CFA francs ($54,360) but barely a quarter of that has been paid out to date, Eteka told Reuters at the weekend after visiting the area.
Forest elephants are smaller than their savannah cousins and tend to be more reclusive, moving around in small groups rather than large herds and generally avoiding contact with humans.
But a field of bananas or rice sometimes proves too tempting, especially if farmers are not around to scare the beasts away.
HI-TECH
John Poulsen, who runs a project in Congo for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), agreed culling would not likely be an effective or long-term solution.
He said growing chilli bushes around fields had proved effective, as had burning bricks made from dried elephant dung and chillies to drive off elephants with the smoke.
But burning the pungent bricks required villagers to spend the night in the fields, whereas most farmers tend to go back to their villages at night, he said.
The WCS is seeking funding for new projects to help villagers deter elephants, including using geophones, which detect movement and can distinguish between the tremors created by different kinds of animals based on their weight.
"We're trying to find money to see if we can develop a device that can detect the movement of an elephant and then make an alarm to scare off the elephant, or alert people to come scare off the elephant," Poulsen said.
Rampant poaching in the 1980s threatened to wipe out elephant populations until an international treaty virtually halted the worldwide ivory trade. Since then populations have recovered, especially in Africa, but so too has poaching, ivory trading and conflict between the huge beasts and humans. (Additional reporting by Alistair Thomson in Dakar)
Source: Reuters
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