# Attitudes towards the Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices to Manage Wild Elephant Movement
## 1 Introduction  
The majority of Asian elephant _Elephas maximus_ populations inhabit fragmented habitats dispersed among human-dominated landscapes. Thus, negative interactions between humans and elephants are inevitable [1; 2; 3; 4; 5]. Human-elephant conflict (HEC) is spread across all the 13 Asian elephant range countries (Banglades, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam) and is the biggest challenge for the conservation of this endangered species [6]. As a result of HEC, hundreds of human lives are lost each year and farmers in rural communities experience large scale economic losses from crop and property damage [7; 8; 9; 10; 11]. Hundreds of elephants also die annually from intentional or unintentional human actions that directly or indirectly result from HEC. Unintentional deaths of elephants may be caused by accidents such as falling into agricultural wells and abandoned quarries or gem pits, colliding with trains, traps or snares setup for other animals, and electrocution from contact with low lying electric power lines or lethal electric fences [5; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16]. Intentional deaths occur from poaching for elephant body parts [17; 18; 19], but the majority are due to retaliation against conflict-causing elephants by using jaw bombs (explosives placed in fruits which are then offered to elephants), or poisoning or shooting [15; 19; 20]. Despite the religious and cultural significance of elephants in the region [21; 22; 23], many people may be driven to retaliate out of desperation to protect their lives and livelihoods. Lethal control is considered by most people to be unacceptable [24] and is no longer permitted in most range countries [25; 26]. Rather, removal of problem elephants from conflict areas by translocation, domestication, or driving them into protected areas are commonly practiced to mitigate HEC [27; 28; 29; 30; 31]. Government authorities are compelled to take such extreme action due to public and political pressure. However, these measures have typically proven to be ineffective in reducing HEC and rather intensify it or severely compromise the wellbeing of elephants, sometimes even causing death to the animal [27; 28; 32; 33; 34; 35]. HEC mitigation approaches readily available to people, such as various physical and biological barrier methods or repellent techniques, have numerous drawbacks or are ineffective in the long-term given that elephants quickly habituate to them [36; 37; 38]. Electric fences may be the most effective HEC mitigation method, if properly built and maintained [39; 40; 41]. But inherent problems of electric fences, such as lack of flexibility once they are constructed, restriction of movement, and access to resources for both elephants and non-targeted species [25; 42; 43] emphasise the need to explore more innovative methods, to provide effective solutions to mitigate HEC. Animal-borne satellite-linked electric shock collars or aversive geofencing devices (AGDs) are a potentially effective but perhaps controversial tool suggested for managing conflicts with Asian elephants [26; 38]. AGDs were first used as a virtual fencing system for domestic pets and were designed to deliver a shock when an animal wearing the collar approached a signal-emitting wire hidden around a predetermined area [44]. Modern AGDs, now commercially used on livestock species have real-time Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities and can be programmed to deliver an audio warning followed by a mild electric shock automatically whenever an animal attempts to cross a virtual boundary [45]. These devices have successfully trained cattle _Bos taurus_ and sheep _Ovis aries_ to associate an audio warning with an unpleasant or aversive electric shock and avoid it by altering their movement whenever they hear the audio warning [46; 47; 48]. Similarly, AGDs may have the potential to condition elephants to alter their movement and avoid human-dominated landscapes.