Beehive trials in Gamba (Gabon) with ecophysiological approaches. Panel Session 4, Mitigation approaches to reduce HWC.

Food is often source of conflict between humans and wildlife in Gabon with elephants being the worst crop-raiders and “problem animals”. Damages to crops drastically reduce income, amplifying poverty and creating a negative perception of wild animals among rural people. Using beehives has been proposed as one of the best non-lethal methods to deter elephants from crop raiding; so we experienced whether the presence of the African honey bees species Apis mellifera adansonii deterred forest elephants (Loxodonta Africana cyclotis) from feeding on fruit trees on the one hand and if local people could perform modern beekeeping.
We found that beehives can be effective deterrents of crop raiding by elephants, but rural people must actively manage hives to keep them at the optimum activity level. Most interestingly, modern beekeeping benefits wild bees preservation (because local people destroy them to collect honey), agriculture through pollination and could be effectively used as a bush-meat trade alternative. We learned from those experiences that conservation is performed and assumed daily by people sharing spaces and resources with wildlife. For that we need to transfer knowledge and capacities to them in order to achieve effective long lasting conservation outcomes. We also must go beyond aspirin (symptomatic) treatments by investigating elephant crop raiding root causes with multidisciplinary ecophysiological approaches. In animals ecophysiology examines the relevance of physiological processes to social, behavioural and ecological constraints with an eco-centric view. Thus, they will help get better understanding of what lead elephant to face threats such as bees or what could explain nutritional behavior and crop selection of elephants.