The Drivers of Illegal Elephant Killing

A new study, partly funded by the National Research Foundation, looks at the motives and drivers behind the illegal killing of elephants across 64 African sites in an effort to facilitate policy development, management, and protection of the continent’s rapidly disappearing herds.

Using criminology theory and literature evidence as well as extensive poaching datasets, which included data on 10 286 illegal elephant killings across 64 sites in 30 African countries from 2002 to 2020, the researchers found strong evidence to support the acknowledged drivers for the activity, namely poor national governance; low law enforcement capacity; low household wealth and health; and global elephant ivory prices. In addition, it was found that forest elephants were being illegally killed at higher rates than savannah elephants and that the evidence for the notion that armed conflicts increased the illegal slaughter of the animals was very weak and that there was no evidence.