# Attitudes towards the Potential Use of Aversive Geofencing Devices to Manage Wild Elephant Movement
## 3 Results  
Out of the 611 responses we analysed in this study, 25.9% (n = 158) were classified as experts. Of these, 65 had experienced HEC and 93 had not. These experts included 70 Sri Lankan citizens, 60 from other range countries, and 28 from non-range countries (Table S1). Farmers comprised 18.3% (n = 112) of the respondents. Of these, 85 had experienced HEC and 27 had not. The remaining 341 respondents classified as others included 83 who had experienced HEC and 258 who had not. A total of 38.1% (n = 233) of respondents had experienced HEC (Table S2). Overall, more than 50% of all respondents had positive responses for all items except for _acceptability of using AGDs on elephants_, for which only 44.2% (n = 270) of respondents had positive opinions (Figure 2). The logistic regression did not reveal detectable differences in opinions for all four items between the stakeholder groups; farmers and others compared to experts or those who had experienced HEC compared to those who had not (_p_ > 0.05, Figure 2). All respondent groups had positive mean scores for _likelihood of elephants learning to avoid the electric shocks from AGDs_ and _effectiveness of AGDs in managing elephant movement_ with relatively high consensus (PCI2 range = 0.00-0.20, Figure 3). Mean scores for _acceptability of using AGDs on elephants_ ranged from \(-\)0.03 to 0.48 (PCI2 range = 0.12-0.41), while the mean scores for _acceptability, if pilot studies on captive elephants have been successful_ ranged from 0.37 to 1.22 (PCI2 range = 0.15-0.45, Figure 3). Provided with the condition 'if pilot studies on captive elephants have been successful', acceptability scores increased by a mean difference of 0.57 (t = 11.50, df = 610, \(p\) < 0.001). Of the total respondents, 15.9% (n = 97) selected \"unacceptable\" or \"somewhat unacceptable\" for _acceptability, if pilot studies on captive elephants have been successful_ (Figure 2). These respondents were represented by all six groups: 13.8% of expert-HEC (n = 9), 30.1% of expert-no HEC (n = 28), 7.1% farmer-HEC (n = 6), 11.1% of farmer-no HEC (n = 3), 14.5% of other-HEC (n = 12), and 15.1% of other-no HEC (n = 39) (Table S3). Of these 97 respondents, 61 offered reasons for the unacceptability of AGDs, which mostly indi  
Figure 2: Forest plot for the logistic regression on the attitudes towards use of aversive geofencing devices (AGDs) as a human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation tool by farmers and others relative to experts and those who have experienced HEC relative to those who have not along with overall percentage responses for each item. Black squares and horizontal lines indicate the odds ratio and the 95% confidence interval, respectively. cated that they perceived AGDs to be unethical, cruel or harmful to elephants (-41), and that it is an approach they considered to be unfeasible or would be unsuccessful because wild elephant behaviour would be different from captive elephants (-25). About 300 respondents provided feedback on the potential challenges in implementing AGDs and/or other comments. These comments can be categorised under five themes: (1) acceptability, support and awareness of stakeholders (-46), (2) safety and wellbeing of elephants (-68), (3) logistical difficulties (-169), (4) durability and reliable functionality of AGDs (-91), and (5) uncertainties in elephants' responses to AGDs (-62). Selected comments offered as reasons for unacceptability and potential challenges are discussed below and provided as Supplementary Material (Tables S4 and S5, respectively). Figure 3: Bubble graphs for mean and Potential for Conflict Index\({}_{2}\) (PCI\({}_{2}\)) on the perception of potential use of aversive geofencing devices (AGDs) as a human-elephant conflict (HEC) mitigation tool among experts, farmers and others who have and have not experienced HEC.