Fruitful outcomes without fatal costs: non-lethal alternatives show promise in alleviating human-wildlife conflict involving an island flying fox

) has been subjected to five annual mass-culling campaigns since 2015, which failed their crop protection goals while raising the species' extinction risk. We evaluated seven non-lethal potential deterrent methods to mitigate flying fox as well as bird damage to ripening fruits in lychee orchards. This study was conducted in close collaboration with local small- and large-scale fruit growers, who occasionally influenced the number and spatial arrangement of trees assigned to treatments and controls. We estimated expected fruit yield per tree before ripening, collected fallen fruits weekly over the four-week fruiting season and categorized them by damage agent. At five control sites, flying foxes damaged 0-88% (mean = 43%) of fruits on unprotected lychee trees. Two sites likely experienced high nocturnal human disturbance, which may have skewed flying fox damage on the control trees; excluding these sites, damage averaged 66%. The lowest flying fox damage occurred when trees were covered by netting or parallel cords (