It may take nothing more than a recorded tiger's growl to ward off crop-trampling elephants.
Researchers played recordings of both leopard and tiger growls for a small herd of elephants and found they reacted differently to the two big cats, a UC Davis press release reported.
"We noticed that the elephants were more scared of tigers than of leopards," Vivek Thuppil, a researcher who participated in the study, said.
The team found the elephants slunk into the jungle when they heard the tiger's growl, but trumpeted and looked almost annoyed when confronted with the sound of a hungry leopard. Leopards have not been known to widely hunt elephants, except for babies that have wandered from the pack.
The elephants did eventually move away from the leopard's growl, but were not as fearful.
"You don't want to mess with something with claws and teeth," Thuppil said.
"They're acting in a very intelligent way," Richard Coss, professor of psychology at UC Davis, said.
Indian farmers have been fighting to protect their crops from elephant raids for generations; this study hopes to settle the dispute peacefully.
Disputes between elephants and humans can cause fatalities on both ends. About 400 people are killed by crop hungry elephants in India every year. Farmer's often use methods such as poisoning and electrocution to control the elephants.
Some Indian farmers have also tried using drums, electric fences, and firecrackers to keep the animals at bay.
The research team set up infrared beams that would set off the growls and turn on a camera when the elephants crossed them.
Adult Asian elephants can consume up to 300 pounds of "roots, grasses, fruit, and bark" a day, National Geographic reported.
The animals don't sleep very often, and forage over large expanses of land in short periods of time.
The animals have long been threatened by poachers who kill them for the ivory in their tusks.
WATCH ELEPHANTS RUN FROM TIGER'S GROWL:
ELEPHANTS REACT TO LEOPARD SOUNDS:
