African elephant responses to synthetic honey bee alarm pheromone

Human-elephant conflict situations continue to be a growing conservation
issue. Conflict situations typically arise as the result of elephants
traversing places with infrastructure where they become disruptive to
human activities. Developing passive options for managing elephant
movement and reducing human-elephant conflict situations is a conservation
priority. In this paper, we report elephant responses to a synthetic honey
bee alarm pheromone blend, and the relationship between strength and
frequency of deterrence responses from elephants. We show that a blend of
isoamyl acetate, 2-heptanol and 2-nonanol, volatile chemicals known to
stimulate honey bee vigilance, defence and mass attack, produced stronger
repellence than isoamyl acetate alone, or blended with 2-heptanol.
Subadult elephants, irrespective of sex, were the demographic group most
likely to show deterrence responses to the alarm blends. In some cases,
entire herds of elephants were repelled from alarm pheromone treatments
placed at waterholes, suggesting that the method has potential for
manipulation of elephant movements on a landscape. Integration of
synthetic honey bee alarm pheromones with other elephant behavioral
management tools is discussed.