The welfare dimensions of human-elephant conflict, including for the elephants involved, and strategies for coexistence that protect both communities and wildlife.
Human-elephant conflict causes welfare harm in multiple directions: elephants killed in retaliatory attacks, injured by non-lethal deterrents, or disrupted from normal ranging and social behavior by conflict situations; and human families losing food security and livelihoods to crop raiding. Welfare-positive coexistence requires solutions that address the underlying resource pressure — reducing habitat encroachment, creating viable corridors between habitat patches, and providing economically viable deterrence methods to farmers. Elephants deterred through beehive fences or chili barriers are not harmed but rather redirected. The welfare stakes for individual elephants are high — as long-lived, highly social animals with complex family structures, each individual death has rippling consequences for the herd.