Kenyan farmers use bees, sesame to maintain marauding elephants away

For farmers within the Taita hills in southern Kenya, elephants are a menace: they raid crops and can sometimes injure and even kill folks.

Farmer Richard Shika, 68, has had some shut encounters. “One time, I used to be attempting to push back an elephant that was in my maize discipline, but it surely turned and charged me,” Shika remembers. “It stopped when it was proper in entrance of me, and I managed to leap out of the way in which.”

He feels fortunate to be alive. Nearly precisely two years in the past, native media reported {that a} three-year-old lady had been trampled to demise by an elephant in Taita Taveta county, her mom injured.

The realm the place Shika has his farm is nearly surrounded by Kenya’s largest Nationwide Park. The border of Tsavo East Nationwide Park is lower than 10 km to the east, and Tsavo West curves round to the north, west and south. The parks have all the time been unfenced, permitting animals emigrate. More and more, that places them within the path of people.

“The locations and infrastructure that we people develop hinder the migratory routes and paths which elephants used to take,” explains Yuka Luvonga, who researches human-elephant coexistence for conservation group Save The Elephants.

Elephants eat about 150 kg of vegetation a day, so preserving them off farms is hard, particularly if forage is scarce elsewhere.

“Elephants are intelligent creatures,” says Shika. “They may attempt touching a fence, and as soon as they realise that it isn’t electrified, they cost by means of.”

If farmers attempt to chase them off, as Shika did, the elephants will typically flip and defend themselves. Kenya Wildlife Service and conservation organisations monitoring human-elephant battle estimate that 30-35 individuals are killed yearly in elephant-related incidents throughout Kenya.

Communities will typically retaliate by spearing or poisoning elephants, however there are different options, as farmers right here have discovered.

One in all them is bees.

“Elephants don’t like getting stung by bees, in order that they steer clear of areas the place hives are,” Shika says.

With assist from Save The Elephants, Shika is one among 50 farmers who’ve hung beehives from wires between poles round their farms. If an elephant touches the wire, the hives are rocked, disturbing the bees. It’s a military of tiny safety guards that retains elephants properly away from the farm.

Altering crops also can make a distinction. Elephants love maize and watermelons. However sesame? Blegh.

Sesame crops produce a scent that actively repels elephants, so for 70-year-old Gertrude Jackim, swapping out maize and inexperienced grams for sesame was a no brainer. “Take a look at me, I’m ageing, so I can’t fend off the elephants or chase them away,” she says.

She is one among 100 farmers who’ve been supported to undertake sesame seed manufacturing. The change was urgently wanted, she says. “Over time, the elephants have turn into too damaging.”

Farming practices that deter elephants — like beekeeping and rising sesame — have made coexistence a lot simpler for farmers like Shika and Jackim.

Conservationists hope that in the long term, it will win hearts and minds in an space the place human-elephant battle had reached worrying ranges.