Direct and indirect impacts of elephants differentially shape distinct tolerance indicators

Human-wildlife coexistence depends on the willingness of people to tolerate the risks posed by wild animals. We analyzed data from a large-scale questionnaire on human-elephant interactions in northern Tanzania to examine three tolerance indicators: willingness to coexist with elephants, support for government-led culling, and attitudes toward poaching. Using Bayesian mixed-effects models and leave-one-out cross-validation, we evaluated how direct impacts of elephants on economic and physical security and indirect effects on well-being were associated with each outcome. Emotional responses (fear and stress) were most strongly associated with unwillingness to coexist with elephants, whereas material costs (crop and property damage) were more strongly associated with support for government-led culling. Attitudes toward poaching were weakly associated with elephant impacts. These findings show that tolerance indicators are not interchangeable or directly comparable, as different wildlife impacts are associated with distinct conservation-relevant responses. Human-wildlife coexistence studies should therefore carefully consider how tolerance is measured.