Crop raiding by elephants causes significant human-elephant conflict and welfare harm to individual elephants through retaliatory killing, and evidence-based deterrence solutions can reduce conflict for both people and elephants.
Elephant crop raiding welfare involves both the human community welfare costs of crop loss and the elephant welfare costs of retaliatory killing and persecution. Individual elephants killed in retaliation represent welfare harm caused ultimately by the failure to provide adequate protected habitat and effective deterrence. Evidence-based conflict mitigation that protects crops without harming elephants serves both human and elephant welfare simultaneously. Conservation investments that prevent conflict are therefore simultaneously animal welfare investments with direct effects on individual elephant survival and safety.