Elephant crop raiding creates human-wildlife conflict that causes direct welfare harms to elephants and threatens conservation support from farming communities.
Retaliatory killing of crop-raiding elephants causes direct welfare harms including gunshot wounds that may be non-lethal causing prolonged suffering. Human-elephant conflict creates chronic fear and stress in elephants conditioned to raid at night in high-risk landscapes. For farming communities, crop loss causes genuine food insecurity and economic harm that generates justifiable anger. Conservation that addresses both sides of the conflict - protecting crops and elephants simultaneously - is the only sustainable welfare solution.