Conservation Behavior Approaches to Elephant Management and Welfare

Dear Colleagues,

Conservation behavior invokes empirical and theoretical components of animal behavior to solve conservation problems and preserve threatened species. Both proximate and ultimate aspects of behavior are considered in understanding adaptive decision-making by animals and subsequently designing management options. As ecosystem engineers and flagship species, elephants (including African bush elephants, African forest elephants, and Asian elephants, all of which are endangered or critically endangered) play a formative role in the ecology and biodiversity of their landscapes. Indeed, most elephants are now managed by humans, from carefully controlled ex situ populations (e.g., zoos and similar wildlife parks) to elephants that live within in situ reserves but that do not receive provisions. However, the conservation issues that elephants face are not homogenous across these settings or geographic locations. For example, human pressures that impact elephant activity can compress these animals to the point where they degrade habitat quality and reduce biodiversity. Further, human–elephant interactions range from positive such as via inobtrusive tourism to highly negative when competition for resources leads to injury or death of humans and/or elephants. Thus, adaptive management strategies that integrate conservation behavior approaches are needed to establish sustainable populations that also do not negatively impact other species with which they share their habitat. Elephants’ size, food requirements, social nature, cognitive abilities, and charismatic appeal present challenges to managing their habitats and their coexistence with humans. Population-level management techniques are often inadequate without consideration of individual variation. As we increase our understanding of elephant biology, we can apply our knowledge to improving human–elephant interactions across the range of environments where elephants exist. This special issue presents in situ and ex situ behavioral and related disciplines studies on elephant biology and the potential or realized application of this information to elephant management.  

Dr. Bruce Alexander Schulte
Dr. Chase LaDue
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.