African elephants demonstrate movements that vary in response to ecological change

Date: August 20, 2019

Source: Colorado State University

Wild African elephants, known for their intelligence, show markedly different movements and reactions to the same risks and resources. A new study led by Colorado State University and Save the Elephants reveals the magnitude and complexity of this variation in behavior and how it occurs in space and time, and among individual animals.

The findings, published in the September issue of Ecology Letters, indicate how elephants employ a diverse array of strategies that they adjust based on ecological changes. In particular, poaching causes elephants to switch their movements. The study results indicate that landscape conservation efforts should consider the needs of the different tactics elephants display.

The research team used GPS tracking data from more than 150 individual elephants followed over 17 years in the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserve in northern Kenya as part of Save the Elephants' long-term monitoring project. The scientists evaluated individual behavior of elephants to identify how each animal used various food and water resources. They then developed new analytical approaches to understand what drives variations among individual elephant behaviors.

Continued

Wildlife tourism may negatively affect African elephants' behavior

Date:  March 20, 2019

Source:  Wiley

Increasing numbers of tourists are interested in observing wildlife such as African elephants, and income generated from tourism potentially aids in the protection of animals and their habitats. However, a new Journal of Zoology study reveals that wildlife tourism may be a stressor for free-ranging elephants.

Over the course of 15 months, researchers recorded the behaviour of elephants in relation to the overall number of tourists in an African reserve. Elephants were more likely to perform aggressive behaviour towards other elephants when the number of tourists in the reserve was high. Also, elephant herds were more likely to move away from tourists when multiple vehicles were present.

"Tourists who wish to observe animals in their natural habitat should be aware of their potential negative effects on animal welfare and research should investigate best practise standards to minimise such negative effects," said lead author Isabelle Szott, of Liverpool John Moores University, in the UK.

Source

Elephants take to the road for reliable resources

In a national park, researchers study African elephant movement and vegetation using satellites

Date:  January 9, 2019

Source:  Ecological Society of America

An elephant never forgets. This seems to be the case, at least, for elephants roaming about Namibia, looking for food, fresh water, and other resources.

The relationship between resource availability and wildlife movement patterns is essential to understanding species behavior and ecology. Landscapes can change from day-to-day and year-to-year, and many animals will move about according to resource availability. But do they remember past resource conditions? Just how important is memory and spatial cognition when seeking to understand wildlife movement?

Researchers in Etosha National Park, Namibia, examined this question through an iconic mammal. "African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are ideal for this study -- they have excellent cognitive abilities and long-term spatial memory," lead author Miriam Tsalyuk of University of California Berkeley explained, "which helps them return to areas with better food and water. African savannas are unpredictable with a prolonged dry season, where knowledge of the long-term availability of resources is highly advantageous." The study was published today in the Ecological Society of America's journal Ecological Monographs.

Continued  

A big difference between Asian and African elephants is diet

Date: August 30, 2017

Source: University of Nottingham

Summary:

New research has shown that there are significant differences between the Asian and the African forest elephant -- and it isn't just about size and the shape of their ears. It is about what they eat and how they affect forest ecosystems.

Read more 

Why Some Countries Don't Want to Do More to Protect Elephants

What to do about the African elephant poaching crisis looms large ahead of next month’s major international wildlife trade meeting.

By Adam Cruise

PUBLISHED AUGUST 24, 2016

That African elephants are in deep trouble has been widely publicized in recent years. They’re being poached at an unsustainable rate, and their numbers have dropped from 600,000 a decade ago to some 400,000 today.

That’s why next month’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is critical. CITES is the treaty signed by 182 countries that regulates wildlife trade across borders. In 1990 CITES banned the international trade in elephant ivory in an attempt to stem poaching, but the slaughter continues unabated.

At the upcoming meeting, known as the Conference of the Parties, or CoP 17, representatives from each member country will get together in Johannesburg to decide how best to manage Africa’s elephants. Two proposals would bring back the ivory trade, while a third would give all of Africa’s elephants the highest level of protection, which would preclude any chance of ivory sales. The battle over these proposals promises to be heated.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s most comprehensive inventory of how well or badly species are doing, the status of the African elephant “varies considerably across the species' range.” The southern African countries of Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana, for instance, have tens of thousands of elephants.

Under CITES, species are assigned to one of three appendices, which strongly reflect the IUCN’s threat levels. Species in Appendix I are most endangered, and their commercial trade is prohibited. For Appendix II and III species, which have lower threat levels, trade is allowed but controlled. The CITES Secretariat agreed to divide Africa’s elephants between Appendix I (generally East, central, and West Africa) and Appendix II (southern Africa).

Read on  

African elephants 'killed faster than they are being born'

Data released on UN world wildlife day shows overall population is still falling despite a recent reduction in levels of poaching for ivory

Damian Carrington

Thursday 3 March 2016 08.00 GMT

Last modified on Thursday 3 March 201609.33 GMT

More African elephants are being killed for ivory than are being born, despite poaching levels falling for the fourth year in a row in 2015.

The new data, released on UN world wildlife day on Thursday, shows about 60% of elephant deaths are at the hands of poachers, meaning the overall population is most likely to be falling.

“African elephant populations continue to face an immediate threat to their survival, especially in central and west Africa where high levels of poaching are still evident,” said John Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species(Cites), which collects the data. At least 20,000 elephants were killed for ivory in 2015.

But Scanlon said there were some encouraging signs, including in parts of eastern Africa, such as in Kenya, where the poaching trend has declined.

“This is showing us all what is possible through a sustained and collective effort with strong political support,” he said. “The momentum generated over the past few years is translating into deeper and stronger efforts to fight these crimes on the front line, where it is needed most – from the rangers in the field, to police and customs at ports and across illicit markets.”

Elephant poaching peaked in 2011, when it accounted for about 75% of all deaths. Poaching has gradually reduced since then but remains well above sustainable levels. Scanlon said even greater efforts were needed to fully reverse the trend.

Read more ...

Are we exterminating one African elephant by not recognizing two?

Date:April 30, 2015

Source:Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Summary:Within the past week, Thailand officials seized seven tons of ivory, representing the slaughter of hundreds of African elephants for illegal trade. While recent reports say that poaching far exceeds population growth, some conservation groups contend that population growth in some regions compensates for poaching losses in others, despite the fact that each area is populated by a different species of African elephant.

Continued ...

African elephants could be extinct 'within a decade'

At least 80,000 African elephants have been poached since 2006, delegates at a summit in Botswana have warned

Oliver Smith

9:05AM GMT 24 Mar 2015

African elephants could be extinct in the wild within the next decade, a major conservation conference in Botswana has been told.

The Africa Elephant Summit, attended by delegates from around 20 countries including China – which is accused of fuelling the poaching trade – heard new figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature that showed the African elephant population fell from 550,000 to 470,000 between 2006 and 2013.

The decline has been even more pronounced in East Africa, where numbers have fallen from 150,000 to 100,000 during the same period. Last year the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania was added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites under threat, highlighting the scale of the problem in the region. The elephant and rhino population has fallen by nearly 90 per cent since the reserve was first listed in 1982. As many as 25,000 elephants were killed in Tanzania’s Selous ecosystem (66 per cent of the reserve’s population) between 2009 and 2013, according to conservation groups.

Read on...

Poachers Killed More than 100,000 Elephants in 3 Years

Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | August 18, 2014 03:36pm ET

This story was updated at 10:32 am ET on Aug. 19.

The insatiable demand for ivory is causing a dramatic decline in the number of African elephants. Poachers are hunting the animal faster than it can reproduce, with deaths affecting more than half of elephant families in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, a new study finds. 

In 2011, the worst African elephant poaching year on record since 1998, poachers killed an estimated 40,000 elephants, or about 8 percent of the elephant population in Africa. In the absence of poaching, African elephant populations grow about 4.2 percent each year, the researchers found based on detailed records from Samburu.

Continued

Does this trunk make me look fat? Overweight zoo elephants no laughing matter

Date:

July 13, 2014

Source:

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Summary:

The birthrate for African elephants in zoos is declining, and researchers look for a link between inflammation and obesity that may be connected to the increase in infertility. "Obesity affects about 40 percent of African elephants in captivity," said one researcher. "Much as we see in humans, excess fat in elephants contributes to the development of heart disease, arthritis, a shorter lifespan and infertility."

Read more

War Elephant Myths Debunked by DNA

Jan. 9, 2014 — Through DNA analysis, Illinois researchers have disproved years of rumors and hearsay surrounding the ancient Battle of Raphia, the only known battle between Asian and African elephants.

"What everyone thinks about war elephants is wrong," said Alfred Roca, a Professor of Animal Sciences and member of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research published in the Journal of Heredity.

After Alexander the Great's premature death, his vast kingdom was divided among his generals. "Being generals, they spent the next three several centuries fighting over the land in-between," Roca said.

Continued

CITES meeting in Bangkok must pressure countries threatening elephant and rhino survival

All eyes on countries fuelling illegal ivory trade

February 2013. The international body that regulates wildlife trade should begin proceedings to impose sanctions on the countries that are most complicit in the illegal trade of ivory, which causes the deaths of up to 30,000 African elephants each year.

CITES trade restrictions
WWF and TRAFFIC are urging the 177 governments gathering in Bangkok in March under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to begin a formal procedure that would lead to strict trade restrictions against the worst offenders in the illicit ivory trade.

Thailand, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Evidence shows that Thailand, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have failed repeatedly to address their rampant domestic ivory markets despite CITES rules that outlaw the unregulated sale of ivory. Under treaty rules, CITES member states can recommend that parties stop trading with non-compliant countries in the 35,000 species covered under the convention, from timbers to crocodile skins.

"These countries have been identified in every ivory trade analysis for the past decade as those most implicated in the illicit ivory trade," said Steven Broad, Executive Director of TRAFFIC. "With the demand for ivory driving a widespread poaching crisis, CITES member countries must demand compliance with international law."

Continued: http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/cites-bangkok.html

Early life care shapes African elephants' future

By Mark Kinver, Environment reporter, BBC News

An African elephants mother's ability to feed and care for its calf has "long-lasting consequences" into adulthood, a study has suggested.

Researchers identified a link between the quality of maternal care in the first two years of a calf's life and reduced growth and delayed maturity.

They added that projected climate change and habitat loss could have a profound impact on the species.

Details of the findings appear in the journal Biology Letters.

"Early maternal care in the first two years of life actually affects an elephant's survival over 40 years - it has long lasting consequences," explained co-author Phyllis Lee from the University of Stirling.

"It is a problem we tend to overlook, unless we are looking at humans: how animals respond over the very long-term to apparently small events that happen in their lives."

Prof Lee and colleague in the international team of researchers said inexperienced mums often provided "inappropriate care".

"Often, they are not only inexperienced but if an elephant gives birth aged 10-12, she's tiny so she does not have the physical resources to devout to the calf.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21426817

Violence in Mali Threatening Survival of Endangered Elephants

Dec. 12, 2012 — University of British Columbia and Oxford University researchers have revealed the secrets of survival of an endangered population of African elephants in the unforgiving Sahara desert. The animals have the largest migration among elephants, the study finds, but recent violence in Mali may now be putting them at risk.

A two-year study, to appear in January's edition of Biological Conservation, tracked the elephants' migration with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars. Its findings advance conservation efforts for the animals, which are facing increased armed conflict in Mali between government forces and Touareg rebels.

"In recent years, the Mali elephants have largely managed to maintain their numbers in extreme natural conditions of heat and drought," says lead researcher Jake Wall, a UBC Dept. of Geography PhD candidate, whose study received support fromSave The Elephants, a Kenya-based conservation group. "The uprising occurring in northern Mali puts them at greater risk, as does increasing human settlement in their traditional territory and the growing risk of ivory poaching."

The study focused on the Gourma elephants of Mali's northern region, which are arguably the world's toughest elephants. The desert-adapted species frequently endure sand storms, water shortages, and temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius (122 Farenheit). Hunting, drought and climate changes have reduced their population to an estimated 350 elephants.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121212093231.htm

Toronto ground zero for battle over future of elephants in zoos

For the past year and a half, a fierce battle has raged over whether three African elephants should stay in their decades-old home at the Toronto Zoo.

But it's a battle that some experts say is now at the centre of a larger North American debate about the future of elephants in zoos.

Watch the fifth estate on Friday at 9 p.m. (9:30 in Newfoundland and Labrador) and join their live chat during the show.

Since the facility opened in 1974, the Toronto Zoo has always had elephants.

Deciding to stop housing the showstopping animals that bring so many visitors through its front gates is no easy decision —and one that's put it at the centre of a larger North American debate about the future of elephants in zoos.

In an interview with CBC's the fifth estate, internationally renowned zoo director and architect David Hancocks thinks that zoos are "on the cusp of a major paradigm shift."

While people have wondered for years whether a zoo can exist without the presence of an elephant, Hancocks suggests a different future. "I suspect as soon as 10 years time we'll probably hear people say, 'How can you call yourself a zoo if you've got an elephant in it?'"

80 acres vs. two

The Toronto Zoo saga began in May, 2011, when the board recommended an end to its elephant program, and that its three remaining female pachyderms — Toka, Thika and Iringa — be moved due to costs and other factors.

Continued:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/11/06/f-elephant-zoo-debate-future-fifth-estate.html?cmp=rss

How Elephants Produce Their Deep 'Voices': Same Physical Mechanism Produces Vocalizations in Elephants and Humans

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2012) — African elephants are known to be great communicators that converse with extremely low-pitched vocalizations, known as infrasounds, over a distance of miles. These infrasounds occupy a very low frequency range -- fewer than 20 Hertz, or cycles, per second -- that is generally below the threshold of human hearing.

Now, a new study shows that elephants rely on the same mechanism that produces speech in humans (and the vocalizations of many other mammals) to hit those extremely low notes. Christian Herbst from the University of Vienna, along with colleagues from Germany, Austria and the United States, used the larynx of a recently deceased elephant to recreate some elephant infrasounds in a laboratory.

Their findings are published in the 3 August issue of the journal Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

"These vocalizations are called infrasounds because their fundamental frequency is below the range of human hearing," explained Herbst during a phone interview. "We only hear the harmonics of such sounds, or multiples of that fundamental frequency. If an elephant's vocal folds were to clap together at 10 Hertz, for example, we would perceive some energy in that sound at 20, 30, 40 Hertz and so on. But these higher overtones are usually weaker in amplitude."

Read on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120802141527.htm

$1,000,000 to save 3 elephants? Ridiculous waste whilst elephants being butchered in Africa for lack of a few dollars

TV Gameshow host Bob Barker wastes $1 million on 'saving' 3 elephants

March 2012.  Bob Barker, the retired US gameshow host who has funded many animal rights issues, (notably the Sea Shepherd anti whaling ship, the 'Bob Barker') has offered to pay up to $1 million to fly three elephants that are no longer wanted by Toronto Zoo to California so they can take up residence in the PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) sanctuary in California.

Mr Barker supports animal and conservation causes, but Wildlife Extra can't help feeling that if he wanted to save elephants, targetting those in most need would have been much more productive.

With the recent killing of as many as 500 elephants in Cameroon and, as this utterly brutal photo from the Democratic Republic of Congo illustrates, terrible atrocities being carried out against elephants in many parts of Africa, a few dollars spent in the right way in the roght place would do a great deal more good than flying 3 elephants from Toronto to California. 

Virunga's elephants anmd the fight to save them
Emmanuelle de Merode, of the Virunga Park team, says "There are about 80 elephants in the Mabenga area; it's one of the park's most important populations to have survived the war. We have received information that the people involved in the killing of the elephant are still in the area and we must deal with this problem. We will be putting together a team of ten rangers to specifically protect this area. We also need to build proper surveillance, elephant monitoring, intelligence gathering etc. For that reason, we want to set up an elephant protection unit as a long term solution to the poaching problem. Their job will be to provide 24 / 7 protection to the Mabenga elephants to avoid their possible extinction."

Read more:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/conservation-waste.html

Thousands of wild birds scare off a herd of elephants in Kenya

This is one moment these elephants in Kenya will want to forget - it's supposed to be mice that instil fear into the beasts, but this flock of red-billed queleas proved their scare tactics are much more than a myth. 

Two’s company: The red-billed queleas are startled by a cracking branch and suddenly flock in their thousands around the elephants (Picture: Antero Topp/Caters)

Perched on a tree as a herd of elephants drink from their favourite watering hole, the combined weight of the birds causes a branch to crack, sparking thousands of the starling-like birds to fill the sky.

As the peaceful scene is shattered, a cloud of the startled birds – each of them weighing about 10g – suddenly surrounds the herd, frightening the five-tonne mammals into a hasty retreat.

‘Despite their size, I was surprised to see the elephants back away maybe 50m (165ft) and some even ran,’ said Antero Topp, who caught the action on camera in east Tsavo, Kenya.

The photographer, 60, added: ‘All the birds took off and you could hear an unbelievable whoosh and, after that, their ear-breaking calls.’

The birds, the world’s most abundant wild bird species, had been feeding close to the waterhole before the desert drama unfolded.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/891925-thousands-of-wild-birds-scare-off-a-herd-of-elephants-in-kenya#ixzz1o3ctVEKg

Elephant Behavior and Conservation Issues

ScienceDaily (Feb. 28, 2012) — Last year, Kenya lost 278 elephants to poachers, as compared to 177 in 2010. On the continent of Africa as whole, elephants have declined from an estimated 700,000 in 1990 to 360,000 today due to the demands of the ivory trade.


Spend some time with University of Notre Dame researchers Elizabeth Archie and Patrick Chiyo and you'll gain a better understanding of just what a tragic loss elephant poaching is.

A thinking, reasoning species with extraordinary memories, a strong sense of family and caring and nurturing natures are increasingly at the risk of extinction.

Archie's Notre Dame lab combines fieldwork and genetics research to understand the causes and consequences of social behavior in wild mammals. Her research team examines how migration, mating and social patterns impact the genetics and evolution of a species and its fitness and susceptibility to diseases.

Read on:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120228190930.htm

Elephant population in Tanzania sanctuaries drops

(Reuters) - The number of elephants in two wildlife sanctuaries in Tanzania has fallen by nearly 42 percent in just three years, a census showed on Tuesday, as poachers increasingly killed the animals for their tusks.

The census at the Selous Game Reserve and Mikumi National Park revealed elephant numbers had plunged to 43,552 in 2009 from 74,900 in 2006.

It was carried out by the east African country's wildlife authority, Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, as part of a government plan to conserve wildlife.

The rapid fall prompted President Jakaya Kikwete to order an investigation, his office said Tuesday.

Conservationists estimate Tanzania has a total elephant population of between 110,000 and 140,000, making it one of the largest sanctuaries in Africa.

But in recent years, Tanzania and neighboring Kenya have suffered a steep rise in poaching as criminals killed elephants and rhinos for their tusks and horns for sale in Asia.

TRAFFIC, a conservation group that tracks trends in wildlife trading, said in a statement last week that 2011 had been a record year for ivory seizure. It pointed to a surge in elephant poaching in Africa to meet Asian demand for tusks for use in jewelry and ornaments.

Elephants, the world's largest land mammals, are also under pressure in many parts of the continent from loss of habitat to humans, pollution and climate change. Their number has fallen to 470,000-685,000 from millions just decades ago, conservationists say.

Kikwete also ordered the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute to investigate the disappearance of the rare Roosevelt's sable antelope from national parks, and to look for ways of re-introducing the animal in at least in one of the parks, the statement said.

The last Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in 2007 agreed to a nine-year moratorium on any further trade in ivory, after some 105 tonnes of elephant ivory had been sold from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe to China and Japan.

(Reporting by Fumbuka Ngw'anakilala; Editing by Duncan Miriri and Alessandra Rizzo)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/03/us-tanzania-elephants-idUKTRE8020QD20120103