Foundation Funds Elephants and Bees Conservation Project
In recognition of the inaugural Artists for Conservation Pollyanna Pickering Endangered Species Award the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation has made a grant of $2750.00 to help secure the future of African savannah elephants in Kenya.
African savannah elephants have been newly recognised as a separate species from African forest elephants and are now listed as Endangered by the IUCN. They have suffered a precipitous decline of at least 60% over the past 50 years. A report in 2016 estimated that there are only 415,000 elephants left in Africa, with between 20,000 and 40,000 killed for the illegal ivory trade every single year, while simultaneously their habitats shrink at a terrifying rate.
In the Meru Conservation Area, communities struggle to coexist with elephants because they raid their crops; elephants subsequently suffer when farmers retaliate with force. The Foundation is proud to be helping to fund a fantastic and innovative initiative which will help both the wildlife and the people living in the area. The project has the ultimate aim of creating an environment for coexistence between people and large herbivores via community-led and nature-based solutions.
The largest land mammal, elephants are notoriously difficult to keep away from crops, easily destroying fences and barriers. However despite their size they are wary of some of the smallest creatures which share their habitat – bees. Recently, conservationists have explored the use of beehive fences as a humane and eco-friendly way to protect crops from elephants. The idea initially came from Kenyan farmers, who noticed that elephants avoided foraging in trees that contained beehives.
Save the Elephants conducted a pilot study to determine if beehive fences could protect farms in Kenya. They placed locally constructed beehives on fence posts every 8 meters and connected them with wires. If an elephant tried to enter between the hives, it would knock into the wires, causing the hives to sway and disturbing the bees. The trials reported that 80 % of elephants that approached the beehive fences were deterred from entering the farms.
Elephants naturally avoid bees – which they can detect merely from the sounds of the hives -due to the painful and dangerous stings that particularly affect them despite their seemingly thick hides. Elephants will make alarm calls to warn other members of the herd of the potential threats posed by bees and keep a safe distance from beehives. The project uses this natural avoidance behaviour, as part of a non-extractive nature-based and compassionate conflict mitigation approach, that will not only protect crops from elephants who approach the beehive fence (and the elephants from retaliation), but will also ultimately generate supplementary income for families through the sustainable production of honey.
By addressing human-elephant conflict on the ground, the Foundation, working in association with Virginia McKenna’s Circe of Compassion will help to remove another barrier to true coexistence between people and wildlife in the Meru Conservation Area allowing the fragile elephant population to expand and roam safely across the landscape.