Elephant Pepper: Buy sauce and save an elephant

You can now buy Elephant Pepper, a line of chilli products made from the same chillis that African farmers are growing to keep elephants away from their crops. From LiveScience:

Elephants do not like capsaicin, the chemical in chilis that makes them hot. So farmers surround maize and other crops with buffers of chilis. They also mixed crushed chilis with used grease and smear it on fences. And they mix chili with animal dung to make briquettes, then burn them at night to create a noxious smoke.

Chilies are also sold to the Elephant Pepper brand for hot sauce products, which have been marketed in South Africa, Zambia, Botswana. They are now available in the United States, the WCS announced today.

Proceeds from the sales of the products are then donated to Elephant Pepper Development Trust.

"The Elephant Pepper product line now offers U.S. consumers a means of supporting both elephants and sustainable development in Africa," said James Deutsch, director of WCS’ Africa Program.