Mortality Patterns of Asian Elephants in a Region of Human–Elephant Conflict
Chase A. LaDue, Imira Eranda, Chandana Jayasinghe, Rajnish Vandercone
Abstract
ABSTRACT Many wildlife species suffer from human–wildlife conflict, especially crop‐raiding. Long‐term analyses of mortality patterns are needed to assess the efficacy of management strategies that address this issue. We report mortality patterns from necropsies of 498 Asian elephants from 2009–2018 in an area of northwestern Sri Lanka. Deaths were lowest in July and highest in October, a period of peak crop availability. Most (about 70%) deaths were human‐related, and males were killed in these incidents more frequently than females. As gunshot deaths decreased, other forms of human‐related deaths increased. Additionally, causes of death differed between districts, with more intentional human‐related mortality observed in the district with the highest percent of protected land. These results highlight the importance of understanding the long‐term spatial and temporal variation in wildlife mortality to effectively address human–wildlife conflict. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.