Humans are at war. They're at war with each other, they're at war with themselves, and some are at war with elephants. Researchers want to know how humans and the long-snooted aggressors can live in peace.
Northern Botswana is a hotspot in the ongoing human-elephant conflict, with 16,000 people trying to coexist with 11,000 elephants. As humans take up more and more space in the area to farm, the result has been crop-raids (elephants eating or damaging crops) and casualties on both sides. There are a few hundred elephant raids annually in Botswana alone, and hundreds of people have died worldwide from run-ins with elephants. So it's understandably hard to convince the locals to protect thevulnerable African Elephant population when they keep raiding their farmland. But American and British scientists have realized it's also difficult to predict and understand these complex interactions.