INTRODUCTION

Crop-raiding by wildlife is neither a new phenomenon nor a rare one. Farmers throughout the world are faced with trying to reduce or eradicate the impact of crop damage by wildlife to their standing crops. Insects, birds, rodents and ungulates are perhaps the most common sources of such conflict and there is a growing literature that details various strategies for reducing crop losses (Fiedler 1988; Giles 1989; Adesina et al. 1994); describes factors that increase farmer tolerance to losses (Decker and Purdy 1988; Messmer 2000); and discusses the introduction of systems for compensating farmers for losses incurred (Rollins and Briggs 1996; Nyhus et al. 2003). For example, wild ungulates and rodents cause an estimated $60-million-worth of damage to forest plantations annually and bird damage to agricultural crops is a multi-million-dollar problem in the USA (Dolbeer et al. 1994). Perhaps not surprisingly, then, rodents, invertebrates and birds receive the greatest attention within the literature on pest management. However, other animals – some of them threatened species – may also pose a considerable threat to farmers' livelihoods. Two types of mammal pests, elephants and primates, exemplify the complexities of managing intelligent and potentially dangerous crop pests, which are also of conservation concern. The problem may be chronic or sporadic, predictable or sometimes unpredictable (at least at the level of the individual); whatever the pattern, crop damage threatens the livelihood security of farmers living near wildlife.