The ForSE project has advanced the understanding of forest elephant behavior under poaching pressure, providing insights that go beyond the current state of the art in wildlife ecology and conservation management. While prior studies have described elephant space use at coarse scales, this project integrates fine-scale GPS tracking, habitat characterization, and explore innovative proxies for anthropogenic risk to identify Spatial Behavioral Strategies (SBS) indicative of poaching pressure. The identification of behavioral adjustments represents a novel approach to early detection of heightened mortality risk, which had not been systematically implemented in forest elephant research before. Additionally, the project has initiated the use of passive acoustic monitoring of gunshots as a complementary proxy for poaching pressure
Scientific impact: Introduction of SBS as quantitative, fine-scale behavioral proxies for poaching pressure, advancing methods in behavioral ecology, conservation biology, and wildlife monitoring.
Socio-economic impact: By informing more efficient allocation of anti-poaching resources, the project can help reduce economic losses associated with wildlife crime and support sustainable management of forest ecosystems.
Wider societal implications: Capacity reinforcement of ANPN staff and knowledge dissemination via training, public outreach, and a dedicated symposium have strengthened local expertise and fostered collaborative conservation networks. The project contributes to ecosystem preservation, supports human–wildlife coexistence, and provides transferable tools and methods applicable across Central Africa and to other species threatened by poaching.
Overall, the project has generated novel behavioral insights, practical monitoring tools, and collaborative frameworks that are expected to improve forest elephant conservation and enhance the societal value of protected area management.
