Burning chillis may help farmers stave off jumbos

ROME: Burning bricks made of dry chilli, dung and water could stop endangered elephants raiding crops in Africa and Asia, reducing conflicts with farmers trying to secure harvests to feed their families, experts said.

Resin from crushed dry chillies irritates elephants’ trunks, acting as a repellent, said a study in northern Botswana, published in the journal Oryx.

“This is an excellent non-lethal and low-cost opportunity for local farmers to keep elephants away from their crops,” Rocio Pozo, a researcher at the University of Oxford, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The findings could help protect elephants, whose population in Africa has plummeted in the last decade due to ivory poaching.

Lines of chillis could be used to separate farms from elephant paths, teaching the animals which routes were safe to use, said Anna Songhurst, director of the Botswana-based Ecoexist and co-author of the study.

Botswana has the largest population of African elephants, and in the eastern Okavango Panhandle, where Ecoexist works, an equal number of animals and humans – 15,000 of each – compete over water, food and land.

The study is part of a wider strategy to reduce human-elephant conflicts and provide food security for both animals and humans, Songhurst said.