Playback of felid growls mitigates crop-raiding by elephants Elephas maximus in southern India V IVEK T HUPPIL and R ICHARD G. C OSS

We attempted to deter crop-raiding elephants Elephas maximus by using playbacks of threatening vocali- zations such as felid growls and human shouts. For this pur- pose, we tested two sound-playback systems in southern India: a wireless, active infrared beam-triggered system to explore the effects of night-time uncertainty in elephants' assessment of predatory threats, and a passive infrared mo- tion detector-triggered system for closer-range playbacks. Using the first system, we deterred % of crop-raiding at- tempts using tiger Panthera tigris growls, .% using leo- pard Panthera pardus growls, and .% using human shouts, with no statistically significant difference among the three sounds. Using the second system, playbacks of tiger and lion Panthera leo growls deterred  and .% of crop-raiding attempts, respectively, with no statistically reliable difference between the two, although video evidence indicated that elephants were more fearful of tiger growls. Our results indicate that playbacks of threatening sounds can be effective in mitigating human-elephant conflict, par- ticularly in bolstering existing deterrent methods.