The Elephant Queen: Can a nature documentary help to increase tolerance towards elephants?

Abstract

Conflict between humans and elephants is one of the more complex examples of human-wildlife conflict, a key challenge for wildlife conservation. While interventions exist to separate humans from elephants, few exist aimed at bringing the two species closer together. This study assesses if a natural history film, The Elephant Queen (TEQ), makes communities living around elephants more tolerant of conflict with elephants. Questionnaires and interviews were conducted before and after seeing the film screened on a mobile cinema in Southern Kenya. A double robust ordinal regression analysis using 357 matching specifications to measure the effect size of viewing TEQ on the six criteria identified as being drivers of tolerance of a wild animal by the Hazard Acceptance model. This study found that students aged between 16 and 18 gained knowledge (mean effect size = 0.27) and affection (mean effect size = 0.17) towards elephants and felt the benefits of elephants more keenly (mean effect size = 0.26) following viewing TEQ. Community members aged between 16–80 also gained knowledge (mean effect size = 0.21) and saw the benefits of elephants (mean effect size = 0.15) but felt the costs of living with elephants more profoundly after viewing TEQ (mean effect size = −0.11). After 90 days a follow-up survey also showed a significant increase in community “affection” towards elephants (mean effect size = 0.11), however the costs, benefits and knowledge gained had been reduced to a statistically insignificant level compared to baseline. Our results suggest that natural history films can serve as a valuable tool in inspiring young minds. When shown to an adult audience, changes were more nuanced and some of the changes were short lived (<3 months). Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.