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Villagers Dig Trench to Keep Elephants At Bay

The East African Standard (Nairobi)
NEWS
September 9, 2005
Posted to the web September 8, 2005

By Michuki Ngamau
Nairobi

For a long time residents of Laikipia District have been in conflict with elephants. The wild animals have killed, maimed and wrecked havoc on private farms. Now, the locals have resolved that enough is enough.

The community is digging a 42km-long moat around their homesteads.

The trench will cut off Bondeni, Siron, Mutamaiyu, Limunga and Kianugu in Rumuruti Division from the reach of the animals.

"We have already done over 12km... we will finish the rest slowly by slowly," said an upbeat, Mr Alexander Kiago, the project manager.

"No one is guaranteed that his wheat or maize crop will mature for harvesting," Joseph Kigera of Siron said.

Last month, two elephants destroyed his three-acre citrus fruit trees and maize after pulling down his fence. The locals think the conflict started in the 1990's when the vast forest cover was subdivided and subsequently cleared for settlement.

Initially, elephants used to roam between Samburu, Laikipia and Isiolo districts. But due to drastic weather changes, the beasts have had to migrate further from their habitat.

"As such, there is a stiff competition between domestic and wild animals causing bitter often violent conflicts," Mrs Jane Gitau, a Kenya Wildlife Service Warden said.

In a 1999 elephant population census, 5,000 were found in the three districts.

"Without the degradation of the forests, such a population can easily be supported without much problems," she says.

In 2001, KWS initiated a plan to relocate some of the elephants to the Meru National Park.

The Sh11 million project was abandoned mid-way.

"We relocated four bulls from Rumuruti to Meru but they went back after four weeks," Julius Kimani the immediate former KWS senior warden in charge of the area says. Kimani fears that it might take more time before another plan is initiated.

Kamau Kihara says previously, the elephant herds visited a salt lick in Rumuruti between August and December.

"Nowadays they do not leave Rumuruti and invade our farms from there," says Kihara.

But he agrees that human settlement has disrupted the life of the wild animals.

"They are just learning the survival of the fittest tactics after the invasion of their homes by humans," he says.

Farmers have suffered immense losses due to invasion of their fields by the animals.

At least 10 people have lost their lives after the elephants trampled on them in the last one decade.

Ranch owners have been accused of deliberately letting the elephants from their expansive farms roam into adjacent crop fields.

"They release the animals to our farms after switching off their electric fences in the dry season, " claims Waigwa Kariuki, a farmer at Kinamba.

But a renowned conservator, Kuki Gallman , who owns the 100,000-acre Laikipia Ranching Company , brushes off the accusations. She says elephants are wild animals and no private rancher has control over them.

"I never brought any elephants from Italy and it is by sheer luck that they find refuge in my farm where the forest has not been depleted," Gallman said. An effort to erect electric fences using solar powered energy has been an option to many farmers.

The implementation, though, is too expensive to carry out due to maintenance costs. Simon Wachira says it cost him over Sh120,000 to put up a 500 metre-fence which he said was of little help.

"It requires a solar panel of 120 watts, cables, batteries, converters and other materials to put up... it is too expensive," says Wachira.

With the support of local leaders the community has been mobilised to undertake the project.

What started as a minor undertaking in mid June, has now picked momentum and by October it is expected that the elephants will be under control. The moat is 9 feet deep and 2 feet wide.

"It will ensure that no animals crosses it unless it is silted with soil and other materials," says Kiago.

Laikipia West MP, G G Kariuki hopes that the trench will help minise the huge costs of human/wildlife conflict.

He regrets that the Government has never compensated the losses even after making formal claims. Kariuki's Wildlife Management (Amendment) Bill 2004 is yet to receive President's Assent.

Among the issues addressed in the Bill include enhanced compensation for a human life lost though wild animals from Sh10,000 to Sh1 million.

Crops, too, were to be compensated unlike in the current legislation, which does not recognise loss of private property to wildlife.

The Government is assisting the project through a food-for-work programme. So far 437 bags of maize and beans have been distributed.

Key To Elephant Conservation Is 'In The Sauce'

What do hot sauce aficionados and African elephants have in common? They both feel the burn of chilli peppers, the key ingredient for resolving human-elephant conflicts in Africa while raising money for farmers and conservation.

Supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups, the Elephant Pepper Development Trust (EPDT) has not only promoted the use of chilli peppers as a means of keeping elephants, buffalo, and other species away from important sources of human food, but has also introduced a viable cash crop to the economy of African nations.

"Chilli peppers are unpalatable to crop-raiding mammals, so they give farmers an economically feasible means of minimizing damage to their investments," said Loki Osborn, project director for the EPDT. "They can be grown as buffer crops to prevent crop-raiding and then be harvested and sold on the world market through the trust."

Osborn originated the idea of Elephant Pepper in 1997, when he found that chilli peppers could be used as a means of stopping elephants from destroying crops in the Zambezi Valley, which straddles the borders of Zimbabwe and Zambia. While electric fences and other deterrents are prohibitively expensive, chillies provide farmers with a cost-effective means of warding off the elephants without inflicting them with permanent damage.

Specifically, farmers use chilli peppers to deter potential crop raiders in two ways: as a protective buffer crop to surround core crops of maize, sorghum and millet; and as an ingredient in a spray to drive away animals.

In addition, chillies are currently being used in the production of bottled hot sauces, jams and relishes. Proceeds from these products are donated to the trust to support to the development of chilli growing projects.

"This is a highly creative and effective way to solve a growing problem across the African landscape," said Dr. James Deutsch, director of WCS' Africa Program. "With the growth of human populations in the Zambezi Valley and beyond, people and wildlife come into more frequent contact than before. Elephant Pepper products are a working example of how the survival of elephants can be reconciled with the livelihoods of farmers."

Since its founding, the Elephant Pepper Development Trust has served up to 250 farmers in the valley, and in 2003, the trust was awarded a $108,000 grant from the World Bank. The trust also formed two companies, the African Spices Company in Zambia, and the Chilli Pepper Company in Zimbabwe. Due to social and economic unrest currently raging in Zimbabwe, the trust's operations there have ceased, opting instead to continue production in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Wildlife Conservation Society.

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society
Date: 2005-07-29
URL: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050729063907.htm

 

###

The Elephant Pepper Development Trust is currently investigating how to distribute their hot sauce products in the United States. For more information, visit www.elephantpepper.org , or send an email to cpc@elephantpepper.org

Cell Phone Technology Helps Researchers Obtain Information About Animals

NewsFromRussia, http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2005/09/16/63055.html
September 16, 2005

Researchers in Kenya and South Africa are using cell phone technology to gather information on elephants, cheetahs, leopards and other animals.

The relatively cheap tracking device includes a no-frills cell phone that is put in a weatherproof case with a GPS receiver, memory card and software to operate the system. The unit, placed on a collar, is then tied around the neck of a wild animal, according to the AP.

As the animals roam, "the GPS receives coordinates, downloads them onto the memory chip, and then every hour, the phone wakes up and sends a (short text message) of the last hour's coordinates to a central server," said Michael Joseph of Safaricom, Kenya's leading service provider, which is involved in an elephant-tracking project.

Then the phone goes to sleep again, preserving battery power.

The tagged animals can also be tracked on the Internet by software that maps their location using data sent by text messaging, said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Kenya's longest-running pachyderm research project, Save the Elephants.

The technology has enabled South Africa's researchers to save up to 60 percent in costs for tracking wildlife, said Professor Wouter van Hoven of the University of Pretoria's Center for Wildlife Management.

"The system is much more user friendly because you don't have to walk around the bush searching for the animals. I have sat around in Europe and was able to monitor animals in the mountains using a cell phone that had access to the Internet," he said.

Previously, researchers tracking tagged wildlife had to locate the targeted animals by aircraft or by car and get close to them before they could download information through VHF transmitters.

"This means if they could find the animal, they could do this maybe once a month, at high cost, of course," Douglas-Hamilton said.

The new system, however, has its limitations, mainly battery life and cell phone network coverage.

Prime minister caught with illegal elephant tusks
The Associated Press
The Grand Rapids Press. Thursday, May 30, 2002
Copyright 2002

OSLO, Norway -- Norway's prime minister admitted on Wednesday
that he unwittingly smuggled two elephant tusks into Norway after an
official visit to Africa.

Kjell Magne Bondevik received the ivory tusks from Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo during a visit in February 2000.

He brought them home without an import permit and in violation of
a global ban on ivory trade, making national headlines in recent
days after it was reported by local media.

In a letter to the Norwegian Customs and Excise service, the
prime minister's office admitted the illegal import and promised to
review its procedures for handling official gifts.

Trade in ivory and elephant products is banned by international
convention on endangered species to protect elephants from poaching.

The prime minister surrendered the tusks to customs officials. He
also turned in an elephant foot vase given to him by Mozambique's
president and a snakeskin handbag given to the prime minister's wife
by South Africa's president during the same Africa tour.

It was not clear whether any charges would be filed.

Kerala urged to check ivory trade, elephant poaching.
By Our Staff Reporter.
The Hindu, Thursday, May 30, 2002
c) 2002 Katsuri & Sons Ltd

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM -- May 29. As the hub of the illegal ivory trade in the
country, Kerala needs a concerted strategy involving undercover operations,
follow-up investigations and enhanced public awareness to call an end to
elephant poaching, according to Belinda Wright, Executive Director, Wildlife
Protection Society of India.

In a chat with presspersons here on Tuesday, Ms.Wright said wildlife crime had
assumed new dimensions, posing fresh threats to enforcement authorities.
"Kerala must realise that if the ivory trade is not halted in its tracks, the
elephant population in the state will be wiped out. By talking about the
illegal ivory racket and the threat to the elephant, you have to generate a
debate and shock the public into action," she says.

She also stressed the need to sensitise the judiciary, enforcement agencies
and lawyers on wildlife crime. Recently involved in a sting operation, which
led to a major ivory haul in the state, she expressed her distress at the
release of the prime accused on bail.

"It is appalling to note that the accused had committed the crime while he was
out on bail in a similar case. A violation of Schedule 1 of the Wildlife
Protection Act is a cognisable, non-bailable offence. And yet, the repeat
offender walks out on bail. This shows that the judiciary is not sensitised to
wildlife protection issues."

Ms.Wright said it was not enough to focus on soft issues like caring for
wildlife and preserving the environment.

"Illegal wildlife trade is part of a well-funded, organised crime network.
Poachers enjoy political patronage, legal support and employ modern weapons
and communication equipment."

Ms.Wright said undercover operations were the most effective method to trap
big sharks involved in the wildlife trade. "Wildlife crime has emerged as the
second largest illegal operation at the global level, after narcotics. Yet
public awareness about the racket remains low. With its rich biodiversity,
India is a major source country for a variety of animal products including
tiger bones and skins, rhino horn, ivory, shahtoosh, swiftlet nests and
coral." She fears that the move to lift the ban on African ivory would provide
a cover to increase the volume of trade from Asia.

Ms.Wright said follow-up investigation was an important component in wildlife
cases to get a better understanding of the racket and the major players
involved. The state police have to be equipped to deal with wildlife crime.
Interpretation of the law is another crucial aspect. Inter departmental
discussions and political debate must also focus on wildlife crime, she adds.

Born in Kolkata, Ms.Wright spent a major part of her life observing,
photographing and making films on wildlife. She was involved in the production
of a National Geographic series titled "Land of the Tiger." As an undercover
informer, she has helped the enforcement authorities bust several major
poaching rackets across the country.

Tourist lust for ivory wiping out Asian elephants
By Reuters
Tuesday, February 26, 2002

LONDON — Asia's wild elephants are being wiped out by the demand for ivory trinkets from wealthy tourists, a report published Monday said.

The coauthor of a report sponsored by the Save the Elephants charity said Vietnam only had about 85 wild elephants left and blamed the ivory purchases of French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, and Chinese tourists for the disappearance of thousands across Asia over the last two decades.

"What's driving this is an increase in foreign tourism," report coauthor Esmond Martin told a London news conference.

The "South and South-East Asian Ivory Markets" report by Martin and Daniel Stiles said local corruption had allowed some 80 percent of the wild elephants in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam to fall victim to the ivory trade from 1988 to 2000. Martin blamed trade in Thailand as the main problem and said it was attracting ivory from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and even imports from Africa.

The number of wild elephants in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell to 1,510 from 6,250 during the 12-year period of the study, with Myanmar's population estimated at only 4,820, about 1,000 lower than in 1990.

Martin said none of the countries surveyed — which also included Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Singapore — had enforced legislation banning the trade in ivory and said officials in some countries even participated. "In Nepal, nobody fears talking to me because the government is not going to do anything about it," Martin said. "In Cambodia and Burma the army poaches elephants, and customs and the police can be bribed to permit exports."

Martin said one encouraging sign was that India had done much to eliminate its ivory trade, partly by substituting camel bone for ivory in carvings. "It shows what a government can do if they want to close the trade down. It's not a rich place, but they've done it very successfully."

He said Sri Lanka had also clamped down on production, as had Nepal, but cheap imports from China were still supplying the Nepali market.

The pair spent five months last year researching the trade in eight Asian nations for the report.

Copyright 2002 — Reuters

Cheating the ivory poachers; Rula Lenska on the joy of meeting - and adopting - orphaned elephants at a sanctuary in Kenya
RULA LENSKA
Mail on Sunday, May 5, 2002
Copyright 2002

THE ivory hunters are back in business-Rangers from the Kenya
Wildlife Service-discovered the decomposing carcasses of a herd of
ten elephants in the Tsavo East National Park last month in the
worst case of ivory poaching in the region for a quarter of a
century. The bloody tusks of seven others were discovered nearby. In
a related incident, four poachers were killed last week by the
authorities in an exchange of gunfire on the edge of the park.

After more than a decade of relative safety for these magnificent
beasts, since the introduction of a worldwide ban on the sale of
ivory in 1989, the murderous trade in elephant tusks is again on the
rise. Official figures make grim reading. Last year 57 elephants
were killed for their ivory, according to the wildlife service.

The true total is certain to be far higher.

But the future for the Kenyan elephant population - of which 80
per cent were said to have been killed in a 20-year orgy of killing
in the Seventies and Eighties - is not all bleak.

I travelled to Kenya to present Wild At Art, a film focusing on
the work of wildlife artist Gary Hodges and conservationist Daphne
Sheldrick, who has devoted her life to saving the last remaining
wild elephants.

Daphne runs a remarkable orphanage for infant elephants,
abandoned as worthless by the poachers because they do not have
tusks.

Other inmates may have lost contact with their herd after being
trapped by some manmade object such as a drain, a well or a snare.
Either way, they would soon fall victim to the ruthless predators of
the African savannah unless they were rescued by Daphne's staff.

I first met Daphne nearly 20 years ago when I narrated her life
story for a Survival programme for ITV.

Through her, I became deeply and passionately involved in
wildlife conservation. This was to be my third visit to her elephant
orphanage on the edges of Nairobi National Park.

A close friend and collaborator of

Daphne's, Gary draws exquisitely in pencil and uses his own
photographs for reference.

We were to spend three days filming at the orphanage and the
remainder of the time in Tsavo East National Park - halfway between
Nairobi and Mombasa and home to Kenya's largest population of wild
elephants - where Daphne's orphans are returned to the wild.

THE Nairobi orphanage, after exchanging warm hugs with Daphne
and her daughter Jill, we set off to find the six infant elephants
now living there, who were out in the bush with their keepers. The
sight of these magical little creatures in their brightly coloured
blankets brought a lump to my throat. Vulnerable, traumatised and
sometimes injured, they are so trusting of their keepers, so protec-

tive of each other and yet curious and playful, just like human
children.

Slowly, they surrounded us and started shoving and inspecting us.

Down on hands and knees, Gary and I were soon blowing into trunks
and revelling in the huge privilege of contact with these
intelligent mammals.

In normal circumstances, milkdependent baby elephants like these
would live in a large matriarchal herd, spending much of their day
under their mothers or other females in the herd. They would have
constant physical contact.

They would be looked after like priceless gems.

The devotion of their natural mothers is replaced by the
dedicated and caring keepers that work for Daphne. Touchingly, the
little elephants soon become very attached to their human foster
parents. They are with them 24 hours a day, and constantly seek
reassurance by clamping their trunks on to nose, ear, mouth or neck,
particularly when being given their bottles.

Trunks are incredibly versatile instruments containing about
90,000 muscles.

But, before they have fully learned how to master these
appendages, the young elephants look very comical. Blowing into the
tip of the trunk gives them your scent - like blowing into a horse's
nostrils - and after the first day it became apparent that we were
remembered by this routine.

Little elephants smell like babies, milky and yeasty. I had an
overwhelming desire to cuddle them, despite knowing that they can
pack a hefty wallop if they feel like playing shove.

There were several hilarious moments when one would land a timely
clout on my head or push me into the camera. Gary's shaved head was
also a huge attraction. The next few days were very special:
chatting to the keepers in a mixture of pidgin English and Swahili;
long discussions with Daphne about her work in many areas of
conservation; interviews with her and Gary for the film; playtime
with the resident warthog family; filming the various routines
associated with elephant maintenance, such as milk-mixing,
mudbathing, feeding, playing and tucking them in for the night.

SOON it was time to move on to Tsavo, still reeling from the
sickening slaughter of one of its elephant families. It was sad to
leave the little ones.

Even though the prospect of meeting 23 others much further along
the road to eventually becoming wild elephants again was very
exciting, it was also somewhat daunting. The oldest of the little
orphans was only one year old, the oldest of the Tsavo

orphans was eight - with tusks. But Daphne assured us that we
would still be able to get close to them.

Five bumpy hours in two four-wheel drives and we were there. Voi
lodge, in the park, and our home for the remainder of the trip, was
stunningly situated with a seemingly never-ending vista of
wilderness stretching for miles and miles. Basic but comfortable,
all bedrooms and all vantage points have magnificent views and there
is a special underground photo hide right in front of one of the
waterholes, which would be extremely useful for observing wild
elephants at very close range.

But the hot and humid weather brought us bad news. The seasonal
rains had come early and the wild herds were scattered to the four
corners of the park rather than congregating around the waterholes.
But the main point of Tsavo was, of course, the 'junior school' -
and this turned out to be more exciting and wonderful than we had
ever dreamed. Tsavo is huge, 7,240 square miles of protected
wilderness, and the earth is bright red. The stockades where the
orphans live are at the entrance to the park and not open to the
general public. Our first meeting was at twilight and no amount of
imagination could have prepared me for the sight and sound of them
as they rushed forwards to drink several gallons of water followed
by dust baths amid rumbling, trumpeting, pushing and jostling.

Two older, self-appointed matriarchs were about 6ft at the
shoulder, with sizeable tusks. My heart was pounding. I couldn't
believe that we would be allowed to get right up close to them.

Joseph, the head keeper, was adamant that the elephants were very
tolerant and patient. He was right. His favourite, a boisterous four-
year-old called Mkwejo, turned out to be a real star.

The next morning we congregated around the waterhole to sit and
wait.

Gary wanted shots of the little ones in motion and I was to
interview him surrounded by elephants as they came out of the
waterhole. Of course, the earth

being red, the water was even redder and within a short time we
were surrounded by very excited, slimy and wet pachyderms, splashing
and spraying us. Time and again, a large wet trunk would sneak its
way in between us and clamp itself contentedly on Gary's head.
Elephants also emit a thrilling subsonic rumble, and if you are
standing right against its trunk it feels like a giant bass speaker
reverberating through your body.

That afternoon, the camera crew stayed around the hotel while
Gary and I went off for a sundowner safari. We were lucky enough to
come across a pride of young lions, beautifully lit by the dying sun
and stretching and posing for us magnificently, with zebra, ostrich
and hartebeest as a backdrop.

We happily shot several rolls of film before retiring to the
lodge.

Over the next few days we saw a lot of the orphans. For me that
was the highlight of the trip. Joseph told me how they are gradually
introduced to the wild elephants until they choose to spend more and
more time with them, and leave their human companions alone.

BUT many of the orphans make return visits to the camp, some even
becoming surrogate nannies to the new additions - in turn teaching
them to become wild again. Daphne told me that, even when they have
become truly wild, some elephants will bring back their babies to
meet their human carers.

Daphne's work through the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is
phenomenal.

And every penny that our film earns will go towards that work.
After seeing the horrendous pictures of the massacre of the family
of wild elephants, it is wonderful to know that her work does so
much good.

The foundation has a Foster An Elephant scheme to which everyone
can subscribe via the Internet. For pounds 35 a year you can have
your own elephant.

You will get monthly keeper reports and photos and be able to
visit them if you get to Kenya. But most importantly you will really
make a difference.

I have two and they give me unending pleasure.

The orphanage is open to the public for one hour every afternoon,
but 'foster parents' are allowed to visit whenever they like. You
can get more information from www.sheldric wildlifetrust.org.

Please become a foster parent.

Remember, elephants never forget!

Rula Lenska is in Noel Coward's Master Pieces at the Birmingham
Rep from May 29 until June 15.

One Ton of Ivory Seized in Kenyan, Tanzanian Game Parks

Story Filed: Friday, April 12, 2002 4:38 AM EST

NAIROBI, Apr 12, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Over one ton of ivory has been seized and several poachers arrested by a regional task force formed to combat cross border wildlife crime, the East African Standard newspaper said on Friday.

The daily quoted Director of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force ( LATF) Musa Limo as saying here on Thursday that most of the ivory had been poached from Kenyan and Tanzanian game parks..

Speaking at the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in Nairobi, where the LATF headquarters is located, Limo said there is rampant poaching and trafficking in animal artefacts within the region.

The problem was made worse by lack of cooperation between neighboring governments since poachers move from one country to the other, he said.

The revelations came soon after a group of African elephants were killed in Kenya's Tsavo East National Park two weeks ago.

A KWS press release said on April 5 that a total of 10 elephants were gunned down by the poachers for the ivory on March 28 in the Tsavo East National Park.

One poacher was killed and three others were on the run after they changed fire with KWS rangers, and nine pair of tusks were found in the bushes, the release said.

The Lusaka Agreement, which brings together Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Lesotho and the Congo, is aimed at eliminating cross border trade in all forms of flora and fauna.

Copyright 2002 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY.

Ivory Ban Has High Cost for Rural Africans
Resurgent Elephants Trample Harvests

By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 10, 2002; Page A01

VOI, Kenya -- There are chubby elephant footprints all over Jacqueline Mwaviswa's farm. But she doesn't think they're cute or even interesting. Love of the floppy-eared, six-ton elephant is something for tourists and wildlife conservationists, says this grandmother of 15.

She's upset because an overnight elephant rampage around her village last week left her entire food supply for the next two months -- her cashew nuts, her cassava and banana trees, her mangos and maize -- trampled and devoured by the world's largest living land mammal.

In Voi and the other poor rural villages that ring Tsavo National Park in southern Kenya, elephants -- with their nimble trunks and wide, padded feet -- have not only destroyed $30,000 worth of food, but have also killed four people since April, causing schools in the area to close and local leaders to urge villagers to arm themselves against marauding wildlife.

"The elephants have spoiled everything," Mwaviswa said as she walked through her shredded fields. "Why can't we get rid of some of them?"

Her question is the focus of an emotional and complex debate halfway around the world this week as 160 countries meet in Santiago, Chile, for the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES. The southern African nations of Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa are pushing for revision of a 13-year-old global ban on the sale of ivory that would allow them to sell stockpiles of elephant tusks worth millions of dollars. And while the proposal involves mostly the tusks of elephants that died from natural causes, some rural Africans are wondering whether it's time to allow some of the continent's larger herds to be thinned out.

"Why can't we use the sale of ivory to pay for compensation for our lost crops or for those who died by elephant?" asked Mwaviswa. "We don't see any of this money."

The global appetite for ivory, prized for its buttery, pearl-like luster, long ago made the elephant a popular target for poachers who kill the animals and sell their tusks. Employing anything from simple wire snares to poisoned arrows to AK-47 rifles, they recently were killing 50,000 to 150,000 elephants a year, carving the tusks from their faces and leaving the carcasses to rot in the sun.

Since the start of the 20th century, when an ivory bracelet priced at a hefty $300 rivaled the status of a diamond ring, the number of elephants in Africa dwindled from an untold abundance to an estimated 1.3 million in 1980 to as few as 600,000 in 1989. But after conservationists, mostly from Europe and the United States, launched a campaign to save the elephants, the sale of ivory was banned. Estimates by wildlife groups indicate the African elephant population continued to slide, reaching 300,000 in 1998, but has since climbed back to 600,000.

The elephant resurgence has forced African governments to make difficult choices about whether to resume the ivory trade -- this time in a carefully controlled way that would keep revenues out of the pockets of poachers and funnel it to poor villagers.

In 1997, CITES agreed to allow the first exception to the ivory sales ban, permitting Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell Japan about 110,000 pounds from existing legal stocks of raw ivory. The deal, which was completed two years later, netted $5 million that was used for elephant conservation in those three countries. This year, the same three countries are being joined by South Africa and Zambia in requesting another one-time sale, to be followed by annual sales governed by strict quotas.

Many wildlife advocates argue that the elephants' comeback is far from complete and that preventing illegal poaching would be impossible. Kenya and its East African neighbors support continuing the ban, as do West African countries and the United States.

No one involved in elephant management programs likes to talk about culling and selling ivory, said Pieter Botha, deputy director of trade and regulation for South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. "We are nature conservationists by heart, and it's a traumatic experience," he said in a telephone interview. "But sometimes it has to be done for all sorts of reasons."

Elephants nearly disappeared from South Africa long ago. The discovery of gold and diamonds attracted Europeans -- including hunters -- in droves and by 1910, there were 120 elephants in the country, Botha said. Now there are 13,000 and their numbers are growing by 7 percent a year, he said. As South Africa and its neighbors struggle to provide public education and basic health care to their citizens, the South African government has 30 tons of ivory in storage, most of it taken from elephants that died from natural causes, Botha said. Selling that stockpile, he said, would bring in about $3.5 million.

"At some point, you do reach the maximum amount that the environment can handle," Botha said. "Here they are eating our trees and hurting the birds that nest there. There has to be a balance. Ivory is a natural product that is a good resource that could be managed to help other conservation projects."

But allowing even the most limited sale of ivory would revive a market for the material that the CITES ban has all but eliminated, said Esmond Martin, who investigates the illegal trade of ivory for conservation groups. If ivory again becomes a legally traded commodity, he said, elephants will again be killed in huge numbers. Even with the ban in place, the demand for elephant tusks in Asia is huge. In August, six tons of ivory from Zambia was confiscated in Singapore. A month later, Chinese authorities seized three tons of ivory shipped through Kenya.

"There are already illegal sales in Congo, in Sudan, in Somalia, all places where there is war and no work," said Martin, who has traveled the globe producing reports on ivory sales. "If they make this legal, everyone will start killing elephants."

Here in Kenya, the safari industry reaps millions of dollars from foreign tourists eager to see wildlife, but the elephant population stands at about 30,000 elephants -- less than a quarter of what it was 30 years ago. Officials here say they oppose legalizing the sale of ivory in any way.

"If ivory is legalized, we stand to lose all of our elephants," said Zipporah Musyoki, head of education for the Nairobi-based African Fund for Endangered Wildlife. "You go to someplace in northeastern Kenya and an elephant is killed every day. Imagine if ivory was legal. There would be constant killing in order to sell the ivory."

At Nairobi Orphan Park, where the Kenyan Wildlife Service brings young elephants whose mothers have been killed, officials said a rise in the number of boarders reflects anticipation among poachers that the CITES ban will be lifted. So far this year, 71 elephants have been poached in Kenya, compared with 57 in 2001.

The most recent arrival to the park is an 11-day-old elephant from Meru, Kenya, whose mother had been poached days after giving birth. Park owner Daphne Sheldrick said the elephant -- whom she named Wendi -- has a slim chance of survival since she was unable to nurse from her mother, whose milk provides immunity from common diseases and infections.

But in Voi, about 150 miles southeast of Nairobi, there is little sympathy for elephants, orphaned or not.

Many villagers depend on subsistence farming. A large influx of Somali immigrants has strained food and water supplies in an area where most people do not have piped water or electricity. The Voi District Hospital is overloaded with children sickened by polluted water. To most villagers in Voi, saving elephants seems almost ludicrous.

"What will my family eat?" asked Malanga Kisombe, a farmer who stood barefoot amid crops trampled by elephants, his nerves frazzled and his eyes glowing red from a night spent without sleep. "The world values elephants more than they care about people."

James ole Perrio, the community wildlife officer for Kenyan Wildlife Service, said his organization is trying to fix the problem by dispatching rangers to drive the elephants back into the Tsavo National Park and by installing more electric fences around nearby villages.

"We understand it is frustrating and there is hostility," said Perrio. "That's why the only thing we can do is encourage the humans and the wildlife to live together."

When humans and elephants come into conflict, Perrio said, the elephants aren't always the ones at fault. While Kenya's elephant population has doubled in the 13 years since the ivory ban was imposed, the human population has risen from 21 million to 34 million, and hungry people are constantly on the move, looking for land to farm. As a result, "many humans are now living where elephants used to be. So when farmers are planting maize and crops, the elephants are attacking," Perrio said.

Rather than advocate selling ivory to repay farmers for destroyed crops, the Wildlife Service has a different idea: persuading farmers to give up their crops and cash in on eco-tourism by selling crafts to tourists and helping care for the animals that attract them.

Walking through a trampled field with one of her grandchildren strapped to her back, Mwaviswa laughs at the idea of getting involved in the tourist industry. She says she's been a farmer all her life. Then she surveys her chewed-up crops and wonders aloud how it would be to sell carved wooden elephants.

Can elephants survive? UN group gives early OK to sale of animal's ivory
Edited by Lara Weber and Curt Wagner
Chicago Tribune
Copyright 2002, Chicago Tribune. All Rights Reserved.
Wednesday, November 13, 2002

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Proposals to allow the one-time sale of 30 tons of
African elephant ivory were accepted Tuesday in preliminary votes at the
UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The 160 nations attending the convention narrowly approved the
proposals by Botswana and Namibia to sell ivory tusks culled in
government programs to manage their elephant populations.

Similar proposals by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia were to be
considered.

The sale of African ivory, which was banned internationally in 1989,
has been the most contentious issue at the convention designed to
protect threatened and endangered species.

The five southern African nations seeking the renewal of the ivory
trade say their elephant populations are now too large for their parks.
They say they should be allowed to sell ivory because they have managed
their elephant populations well.

A final vote is set for Friday.

POINT

Legalizing the ivory trade and extending property rights to elephants
would ensure the animals' long-term survival by giving people a strong
incentive to protect them from poachers. In contrast, making the ivory
trade illegal drives up the price of ivory, making dead elephants much
more valuable than living ones. Trade bans that destroy the legal value
of wildlife also undermine the incentive to maintain habitats for
wildlife.

"Why can't we use the sale of ivory to pay for compensation for our
lost crops or for those who died by elephant?" asked Jacqueline
Mwaviswa, a Kenyan farmer. "We don't see any of this money."

COUNTERPOINT

Conservation groups still are worried that any legal ivory sale may
set off another round of poaching like the one that reduced the number
of Africa's elephants from 1.3 million to 600,000 during the 1980s.

The Kenyan delegation has been the staunchest critic of the ivory
proposals, arguing that a renewal of poaching may overwhelm many African
nations struggling to recover their elephant herds.

Many wildlife advocates argue that the elephants' comeback is far from
complete and that preventing illegal poaching would be impossible.

Asian elephant conservationists warn against lifting ivory ban
By CHRIS DECHERD, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2002. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, May 30, 2002

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Scientists and activists trying to save
the endangered Asian elephant urged regional governments Thursday to
combat efforts of African nations to legalize the ivory trade.

The declaration came at the end of a four-day meeting of Asian
elephant specialists, organized by the Swiss-based World Conservation
Union.

"Our recommendation is that the Asian states don't want any
resumption of the ivory trade," said Vivek Menon, the executive director
of the Wildlife Trust of India and chairman of the conference's ivory
task force.

The resolution will be circulated before a meeting in November in
Santiago, Chile, of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered
Species - CITES - the United Nations organization that monitors and
seeks to protect animal species.

At least 12 African nations and Japan are expected to lobby for the
resumption of the ivory trade by allowing ivory from African elephants
to be bought and sold, Menon said.

"Experience has shown us that if the trade in African elephant ivory
is legal, the Asian elephant will suffer because our ivory will be
smuggled and traded as well," Menon said.

He explained it is easy for unscrupulous businessmen to claim that
Asian elephant ivory is from Africa because it is "scientifically"
impossible to determine what kind of elephant a piece of ivory comes
from.

Trade in Asian elephant ivory has been banned since 1976, Menon said.
African elephant ivory trading was banned from 1989 until 1997, when
CITES allowed Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe to sell 60 tons of ivory a
year to Japan. CITES scrapped that provision and again banned
international ivory trading at its last meeting in 2000.

Conservationists estimate that only 35,000 Asian elephants are still
roaming the wild, more than half of them in southern India. Other
concentrations are in Sumatra, Indonesia, parts of Sri Lanka, and
western Myanmar, also known as Burma.

This week's conference rapped the Japanese government for not taking
action to protect the Asian elephant and expressed concern about reports
of laxity in Japan's enforcement of controls on ivory trade. It called
upon the Japanese government not to support easing the ban on ivory
trading.

Menon said "monopolies" in Japan dominate the international trade in
ivory and that Asia's richest nation is expected to lobby heavily for
the ban to be lifted.

"Japan can influence countries into voting for them -- developmental
aid or any sort of incentive can be used," Menon said, expressing
concern the ban could be overturned in November.

Elephant-phobia grips central region

VietNam News, http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=02SUN110905
September 11, 2005

A series of unfortunate events has spurred locals in the central region to let their fears of elephants run wild, but, as An Khanh finds, there must be a way to preserve life on both sides of this heated row.

It was night when Nguyen Thi Thuy was falling asleep, and a sound from the kitchen woke her. Initially she thought her water buffalo were getting into trouble, and asked her husband to help her take care of it, but she didn't know it would be the last time she would talk to him.

Thuy, living in Tien Ngoc Commune of central province of Quang Nam’s Tien Phuoc District, said her husband asked her to go back to the house from the water buffalo shed to look after the children. She walked only five steps before hearing her husband scream, "Bo bo lang!" (elephant, everybody!).

"After he screamed, everything went silent. I rushed to him, but didn't see the elephant – only my husband on the ground with a growing pool of blood around his head." Thuy said.

Thuy's husband, Le Thanh Trung, was killed by an elephant in 2003, leaving his wife with nine children. "My children and I are living on the help and compassion of our neighbours. When he was alive, Trung and I worked many jobs to feed our children, but now I am alone and cannot possibly provide for all of them," she said.

Vo Thi Ty, 34, has a similar story, and will never forget the tragic death of her husband.

Vo Thi Ty, 34, has a similar story, and will never forget the tragic death of her husband.

Ty said her husband, Nguyen Tan Son, was grazing the water buffaloes one day in 2003 and came home in the afternoon to discover the herd lacked one calf, so he and his friend Luong Van Sau went back to the fields in the rain to search for it. Son and Sau were under the impression that elephants wouldn't go out in the rain, but one did.

With Sau only 5m away, the elephant trampled Son to death. Sau tried to call villagers to help, but his efforts were ineffectual.

Vo Hong Phan, Ty's uncle, said Ty went to live with her mother after her husband was killed. "We feel sorry for her," he said, "it's a terrible situation, and all the locals here obsess about these elephants that attack people."

Thuy and Ty are just a fraction of the victims of this kind in Tien Phuoc District.

Phan, 69, said as a young boy, he always saw elephants during the rainy season.

"Previously, the elephants around here were good-natured, and wouldn't harm people or crops," said Phan. "But these days, the herd rampages through residential areas ten times a year, trampling through crops and sometimes killing people."

Ty's mother Hai said ten households in her village moved away from the Na Bau area, and while they are now without land to farm, they wouldn't dare return to grow crops for fear of the elephants.

Head of Tien Phuoc Forest Protection Station Huynh Ngoc Tan said elephants had killed two people, injured four others and destroyed many subsidiary crops in Tien Phuoc-Bac Tra My area since 1999.

Head of Que Son Forest Protection Station, Le Quang Kim, was attacked by an elephant, seriously injured, and now cannot walk.

"I usually came across the elephants when surveying the forest. The day I was injured, I couldn't see the elephant, but he could smell me where I hid in a wooden tent, which he trampled, crippling me in the process," Kim said.

Tan said people who had lived in the area for a while said the elephants have only become aggressive since 1992, when a group of Lao hunters came and killed nine of the 14 elephants, after which the remaining elephants became ferocious. In elephant population control studies in Africa, researchers have found that if a few of a herd are left alive, they will remember and start attacking humans, unprovoked.

Locals' encroachments on elephants' habitats and thus food sources also look plausible. In Tien Lanh Commune, the elephants came out of the forest when people planted pineapple. Tan said the communal growers used explosives to get rid of the pachyderms, which only made them angry.

The MOSAIC programme of the World Wildlife Foundation in March 2003 conducted a study on the management of integrated conservation in strategic areas that indicated that illegal mining activities in Que Son had depleted food resources.

Reports from Tien Phuoc, Que Son and Tra My forest protection stations show there are two herds of elephants in Quang Nam Province – one five to seven elephant herd in Que Son and one herd of seven in Bac Tra and Tien Phuoc.

Tan said MOSAIC recently reported there was a herd of about ten in Thanh River's upper stretch.

To preserve the elephant herds while protecting the people and their crops, Quang Nam authorities have relocated 51 households in Tien Phuoc and Que Son districts.

The Head of the Quang Nam Forest Management Office, Diep Thanh Phong, said the province had proposed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and the Forest Management Department assign experts to investigate the area and to study conflict prevention measures.

Phong said, however, that many expert delegations, including international ones, had visited the province and had not found a feasible strategy.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc, chairman of the Quang Nam People's Committee, said the province had asked the Government to help local households move out of dangerous areas and to carry out a project to get the elephants all in one area. MARD in June this year proposed that the Government kill one fierce elephant that had killed more than 20 people and destroyed many crops in Tan Phu Farm since 1999. — VNS

Elephants rampage through Seoul
South Korea's busy capital Seoul faced an added complication on Wednesday when six elephants escaped from an amusement park, causing chaos.

The elephants broke into a restaurant in the east of the city, and tore through the garden of a private home.

Officials said one elephant was briefly detained at a police station, before all were returned to their park.

"It seems one of them panicked, causing the others to also panic and flee the grounds," one official said.

Police squad cars cordoned off the area and placed officers at key cross-sections to prevent the elephants from escaping to other parts of the city, Yonhap news agency reported.

One of the elephants ran into an alley and hit a 52-year-old woman with its trunk, Yonhap said.

She was reportedly being treated in hospital.

The woman's landlord, who was standing with her when the elephant appeared, said he ran away scared, Yonhap said.

Police said the elephants escaped from the Children's Grand Park during a circus performance.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/4464685.stm

Published: 2005/04/20 12:00:56 GMT

© BBC MMV

Elephant Family Die in Easter Eve -- by Feng Lidong

Story Filed: Saturday, April 06, 2002 3:05 PM EST

NAIROBI, Apr 6, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- March 28 witnessed Kenyans busy preparation for the celebration of the long Easter holiday while a group of 11 elephants visited one of their most favorite haunts inside the vast Tsavo East National Park, a famous wildlife preserve in East Africa.

At the same night, a gang of four poachers, armed with AK-47 and G3 rifles, were peeping around in the bushes to find a chance to ambush elephants for the tusks.

When the elephant family moved into the gang's vision in the moonlight, the poachers fired. Six elephants were shot to death immediately on the spot, including an enormous matriarch, two of her sons and three of her daughters.

Two young elephants with small ivory were injured and managed to move only a few hundred meters away before they both fell and died. A large bull was killed one kilometer away from where most of the family members felt down while another teenaged bull was slaughtered nearby.

Only one adult cow escaped, apparently unharmed, and has been wandering aimlessly a few kilometers away.

Most of the ivories were quickly cut off by the poachers with small axes. However, the small tusks of the two baby elephants were not taken. Other parts of these elephants' carcasses were covered by branches and bushes.

At the same night, rangers of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) were on their trail for the poachers. They have been hunting for the suspected criminals for several days before the incident because the footprints of four men were tracked towards the Tsavo East National Park.

The poachers moved at night and hid by day while the KWS rangers followed them by eight hours.

When the tracks led directly to the fresh elephant carcasses at 10 a.m. (0700 GMT) on March 29, the KWS rangers immediately brought in reinforcement including a helicopter and two aircraft. Special forces were also sent to strengthen the ground teams. Within hours, they had made contact with the poachers who opened fire on the rangers before escaping into the deep bush.

However, the poachers was found again early in the morning on April 1, 87 kilometers away from the site of the killing. A second exchange of fire occurred, leaving the leader of the poachers dead. The others turned tail and escaped into the darkness. The KWS personnel experienced no casualties.

A KWS press release issued in Nairobi on April 5 said this slaughter of a family of 10 elephants at one time by the poachers is the largest incident since the body was established in 1989.

The incident is reminiscent of poacher activity in the 1980s when elephants were reduced from over 25,000 to fewer than 5,000 in the Tsavo Ecosystem alone.

Poaching activities have been in decrease during the past 10 years in the Tsavo Ecosystem which covers an area of about 40,000 square kilometers.

One of the major reasons of the frenzied activities of poachers is that the ivory markets are still active in some parts of the world, particularly in South and Southeast Asian countries.

So far, according to a spokesman of the KWS, nine pairs of tusks had been recovered in two different caches at the site of the March 28 killing as one pair of tusks remains to be found.

The KWS operation, still underway on the trail of the remaining three poachers, has send out a strong message to other poachers that Kenya is indeed serious about the protection of her elephants.

In 1989, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi lighted a pile of 25 tons of confiscated ivory at a park in the capital before thousands of witnesses to display the government's firm commitment to the protection of wildlife and environment.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua in late February, KWS Director Joseph Kioko urged the international community to take strict measures against anyone found illegally carrying or selling ivories.

He also called on tourists visiting any African country not to purchase ivory because it increases the demand for ivory which results in more illegal killing of elephants.

Copyright 2002 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY.

Elephant Tramples Handler

Story Filed: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 2:23 PM EST

Modimolle, May 28, 2002 (African Eye News Service/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- An elephant trampled an animal handler to death in the Shambala game reserve near Modimolle (formerly Nylstroom) in Limpopo on Monday.

Joel Munhuweyi, a 23-year-old Zimbabwean, worked at the reserve and was trampled when he went to feed the elephant, said Bushveld police spokesperson Captain Malesela Ledwaba on Tuesday.

"The elephant picked him up with his trunk and threw him against a tree before trampling him and piercing him through the body with a tusk," said Ledwaba.

Munhuweyi's head, ribs, back and the stomach were crushed.

Ledwaba said it seemed the animal was suffering stress after recently being transported from Zimbabwe.

Reserve manager Basil Stein could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a Free State farmer is furious after a neighbour's hand reared lions attacked and killed eight of his sheep.

Barnie Venter who owns Helderhoek Farm in Reddersburg in the southern Free State found the sheep carcasses on Monday. Until then farmers in the community were accustomed to jackal and caracal taking-out their livestock, but never lion.

The five tame lions were hand-reared and taught to hunt by Venter's neighbour Jan Delport.

They have free reign of Delport's property but escaped through a hole in the fence on Sunday night. The fence was reportedly damaged in a recent veld fire.

Police caught the lions and returned them to their owner in the back of the police van.

Delport has begged his furious neighbour for forgiveness and promised to compensate Venter. Venter said he was assessing the damage but warned the sheep were expensive because they were breeding rams.

He said the five 14-month-old lions are like his children and won't be punished for the carnage.

"We taught them to hunt for themselves; first with a little lamb, then with a bigger sheep, then with a little pig," Delport said. "Today they hunt their own food."

by Riot Hlatshwayo & Marleen Smith

Copyright African Eye News Service. Distributed by All Africa Global Media(AllAfrica.com)


Tuskless elephants evolving in China due to poaching

Sunday, July 17, 2005

A recent study has predicted that more male Asian elephants in China will be born without tusks because poaching of tusked elephants is reducing the gene pool, the China Daily reported Sunday.

The study, conducted in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan province, where two-thirds of China's Asian elephants live, found that the tuskless phenomenon is spreading, the report said.

The tusk-free gene, which is found in between two and five percent of male Asian elephants, has increased to between five percent and 10 percent in elephants in China, according to Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology at Beijing Normal University.

"This decrease in the number of elephants born with tusks shows the poaching pressure for ivory on the animal," said Zhang, whose research team has been studying elephants since 1999 at a reserve in Xishuangbanna.

Only male elephants have tusks, which are said to be a symbol of masculinity and a weapon to fight for territory. However, due to poaching for ivory, the elephants' pride has become a death sentence, the report said.

"The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," said Zhang. "Therefore, the ones without tusks survive, preserving the tuskless gene in the species."

A similar decline in elephants with tusks has been seen in Uganda, which experienced heavy poaching in the 1970s and '80s, the report said.

However, Zhang's findings of the spread of the tuskless gene due to poaching must be tested, according to some academics.

"This is, of course, a possibility, but till now there is no clear genetic proof that it can occur," Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, was quoted as saying.

Rampant poaching of male elephants for tusks has also caused the female-to-male ratio to rise from the ideal 2:1 to 4:1 in China and 100:1 in India, the report said.

There are between 45,000 and 50,000 Asian elephants in 13 countries, including China and India. China only has about 250, according to the report.

China is among 160 nations which signed an international treaty administered since 1989 banning the trade in ivory and products of other endangered animals.

Nonetheless, four Asian elephants were found shot dead in China last year.

In addition to poaching, human activity that causes a loss of habitat also threatens the animals.

India makes elephants appeal
By Subir Bhaumik
BBC correspondent in Calcutta

Indian officials have asked Bangladesh not to kill around 100 elephants which have strayed into that country.

The elephants have killed 13 people in Bangladesh and injured many more, leading to demands that they should be killed if they cannot be returned.

The two countries have many differences, but it is only in recent weeks that elephants have become a problem between them.

Indian officials have called for a joint initiative to bring them back.

Migratory animals

The Forestry Minister in India's north-eastern state of Meghalaya, Mukul Sangma, made the appeal to Bangladesh.

He said there should be a joint initiative between the two countries, so that they could be brought back and pushed into the dense jungles of India's northeast.

Mr Sangma said the elephants were migratory by nature.

He said Bangladesh should protect them because it was a signatory to global declarations for protecting wild animals.

The Wildlife Society of Bangladesh had asked India to take the elephants back, suggesting that they should be killed to stop them from causing any more damage.

Thirteen people have died and many more have been injured by the elephants in recent weeks in Bangladesh.

But Bangladesh's Chief Conservator of Forests, Munshi Anwarul Islam, said they will not take any immediate initiative to kill them.

He said the elephants were not able to find a corridor to go back to India, so they were turning violent.

North-east India lies on the corridor used by the great Siamese elephant to move from Thailand to the foothills of Bhutan.

But in recent years the population has increased heavily, and they have encroached on forest land, say officials.

The elephants have tended to lose their tracks and move into populated spaces, causing mayhem.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/3571022.stm

Published: 2004/08/16 17:02:05 GMT

© BBC MMIV

Last Elephant Leaving San Francisco Zoo

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-elephant-relocates,0,1309000.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

By Associated Press

December 13, 2004, 8:28 AM EST

SAN FRANCISCO -- Yielding to pressure from animal-rights groups, the San Francisco Zoo is giving up its last elephant, marking the first time in the facility's 75-history that it will be without at least one pachyderm.

The zoo's only remaining elephant is being moved to a sanctuary in the Sierra foothills after elected officials voted to require a larger compound for elephants at the seaside attraction.

The 38-year-old elephant named Lulu is the fourth animal to be relocated or to have died in the zoo's half-acre elephant compound this year.

The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors said last week that elephants can only return when the zoo builds a larger elephant enclosure of at least 15 acres.

Animal-rights activists applauded the board's action.

"While no urban environment can meet the vast space requirements of elephants, the new San Francisco standards are an important first step in forcing the zoo to recognize and address the complex needs of elephants," said veterinarian Elliot Katz, president of the animal-rights group In Defense of Animals.

The zoo's director, Manuel Mollinedo, expects elephants to return at some point. He planned to seek bonds to help build new pens and was optimistic private donors might contribute to the project.

Animal-rights activists have sought closure of the elephant exhibit for years. The dispute intensified in April, when a 44-year-old African elephant died at the zoo. Earlier, zoo officials euthanized an 37-year-old Asian elephant because of a degenerative joint disease and other ailments.

In the wild, elephants may live 50 to 70 years.

Last month, a 38-year-old Asian elephant was moved to a 2,300-acre sanctuary in San Andreas, where zoo officials will soon relocate Lulu, an African elephant who is beset with health problems.

Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

Elephant Deaths Spur New Debate Over U.S. Zoos

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7605327&src=rss/domesticNews

Friday, Feb 11, 2005, 10:16 AM ET

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Zoo elephants swaying back and forth, polar bears swimming in endless circuits and manic monkeys grooming themselves to baldness.

Such disturbed, trance-like behavior in some zoo animals and the deaths of four elephants in the past year at two U.S. zoos have sparked animal rights protests and renewed a larger debate over the purpose of zoos.

Defenders say zoos serve important purposes, including offering access to researchers, providing money and expertise for habitat preservation elsewhere and as repositories of genetic material for fast-vanishing species. But critics say captivity is both physically and mentally stressful.

"We might see within our lifetimes a great reduction or extinction of these animals," as their natural habitats are squeezed by the crush of human populations, said Bill Foster, president of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. "Extinction is not acceptable."

Zoos originally gave city dwellers the chance to marvel at the world's fauna and later promoted habitat preservation, but those purposes have been eclipsed, critics say.

"In the old days, when you didn't have television, children would see animals for the first time at the zoo and it had an educational component," said Tufts University animal behaviorist Nicholas Dodman.

"Now the zoos claim they're preserving the disappearing species, preserving embryos and genetic material. But you don't need to do that in a zoo. There's still a lot of entertainment to zoos," he said.

Elephants are often chosen the most popular zoo animals in surveys, and a newborn calf draws hordes of visitors. But seeing animals behaving oddly in zoos is more disturbing than educational, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said.

Oxford University researchers contended 40 percent of zoo elephants display so-called stereotypical behavior, which their 2002 report defined as repetitive movements that lack purpose.

The report said studies have shown zoo elephants tend to die younger, are more prone to aggression and are less capable of breeding compared with the hundreds of thousands of elephants left in the wild.

ELEPHANT DEATHS

Moreover, critics say many zoo elephants, though hardy, spend too much time cramped indoors, get little exercise and become susceptible to infections and arthritis from walking on concrete floors.

After two of three African elephants housed at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo died over the past four months, animal rights activists charged their deaths were hastened by the stress brought on by the elephants' 2003 move from balmy San Diego.

Zoo curators denied climate was to blame and concluded that Tatima, 35, died from a rare lung infection and Peaches, at 55 the oldest of some 300 elephants in U.S. captivity, suffered from organ failure.

When two elephants in San Francisco's zoo died within weeks of each other last year, the resulting outcry prompted the zoo to close its exhibit and opt to send its remaining elephants to a California sanctuary against the wishes of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

Detroit's zoo director, who decided his zoo lacked the space or resources to keep elephants, also had a fight with the association about sending his elephants to a Tennessee sanctuary. The association relented only when one elephant showed signs of herpes.

Detroit's zoo was the eighth North American zoo to stop exhibiting elephants since 1991, according to PETA.

"For the modern-day zoo to have elephants does nothing for the preservation or conservation of the species. And it does nothing for the welfare of the elephant," said Carol Buckley, who created a Tennessee sanctuary that now cares for a dozen cast-off zoo and circus elephants on 2,700 acres.

Foster of the zoo association countered that many northern zoos have successful elephant programs with plans to expand.

Calves born in captivity have higher mortality rates and survivors often have to be isolated for a time from their inexperienced mothers, who may trample them.

Based on the Oxford University report that found 40 percent of zoo elephants engage in stereotypical behavior, the report's sponsor, Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, urged European zoos to stop importing and breeding elephants and to phase out exhibits.

Dodman said he frequently observes stereotypical behavior among zoo animals: polar bears rocking in place or swimming in endless circuits, parrots grooming themselves until they bleed, gorillas regurgitating and re-ingesting meals, and big cats pacing the same routes in trance-like patterns.

Most zoos embrace efforts to enrich the animals' lives by varying feeding rituals and providing toys, with some success; an Alaskan zoo is even building its elephant a treadmill. But elephants and other animals that range widely in the wild are less easily distracted, critics say.

Some zoos give animals behaving stereotypically the same antidepressant drugs found to ease compulsive behaviors in people, Dodman said.

The key is providing more space and companionship for elephants, which often travel in large herds and forage for hours, Buckley said.


Conservationist Plan Would Give Lions, Elephants a Home on the Range
Science News
August 18, 2005

People hoping to glimpse lions, cheetahs, elephants and other megafauna in their natural environment must journey to Africa's wildlife reserves. But if one group of ecologists and conservationists gets its way, safari-goers could soon head for the Great Plains of the U.S. instead.

In a report published today in the journal Nature, Josh Donlan of Cornell University and his colleagues propose replacing the large carnivores and herbivores that disappeared from North America 13,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Noting that humans likely had a part in these extinctions and that our subsequent activities have stunted the evolutionary potential of most remaining megafauna, the scientists say we have an ethical responsibility to address these problems. But rather than just managing extinction, they argue, conservation biology should aim to actively restore natural processes.

Large-bodied vertebrates commonly play key roles in maintaining biodiversity and North America's extinct megafauna probably figured importantly in the evolution of animals that are around today, the team asserts. The researchers cite the pronghorn--the fastest land animal on the continent--as an example. This animal's remarkable fleet-footedness, they observe, was almost certainly shaped by the now-extinct American cheetah.

Under the new plan, called Pleistocene "re-wilding," close cousins and counterparts of the lost beasts, mostly from Africa, would be released into large, protected tracts of land and allowed to roam freely. Ideally, such actions would not only give parts of North America back an approximation of their long-ago megafauna diversity, they would also help save animals such as the African cheetah from extinction.

Pleistocene re-wilding is also justified on economic grounds, Donlan and his co-authors contend. They envision creating "ecological history parks" in economically depressed regions of the Great Plains, which would create management and tourism jobs for people living in the surrounding towns.

"Obviously, gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue, especially when you talk about reintroducing predators," Donlan admits. "There are going to have to be some major attitude shifts. That includes realizing predation is a natural role, and that people are going to have to take precautions."

Detroit Zoo to Free Elephants on Ethical Grounds
By Michael Ellis
Thursday, May 20, 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DPSLUN0DNFVIECRBAE0CFEY?type=scienceNews&storyID=5209388


The Detroit Zoo will become the first major zoo to stop exhibiting elephants on ethical grounds because they can develop arthritis and stress-related ailments in captivity, officials said on Thursday.

The Detroit Zoo has one of the largest facilities in the country, but its Asian elephants Winky and Wanda still have recurring foot problems due to the cold weather, Director Ron Kagen told Reuters.

In the wild, elephants roam vast areas, live in large families, and exhibit some of the same social traits as humans such as forming friendships and mourning for their dead.

"Elephants seem to be intelligent and even social in ways that are similar to humans," Kagen said. "Elephants can suffer from similar things to what we suffer from when we're in difficult environments."

Confined to zoos and circuses, elephants develop physical problems and neurotic behaviors such as rocking back and forth and aggressive behavior, he said.

"If we don't feel like we can (keep elephants), then the question is, who can and how?," he said. "For us, there really is a big question about whether elephants should be in captivity at all."

Kagen likens the change to the decision to stop performances by elephants and chimpanzees years ago at the zoo because of the stress it placed on the animals.

The zoo expects to send Winky and Wanda to an animal sanctuary this summer where they can roam with other elephants.

"I think it is an enormously important precedent," Wayne Pacelle, chief executive officer of the Humane Society of the United States, told Reuters. "It should trigger the examination of the treatment of elephants in other zoos and in circuses throughout the country."

Other zoos have also given away their elephants because they had health problems due to inadequate faculties, Pacelle said. But the Detroit Zoo is the first with sizable grounds and adequate care to end its elephant exhibit on ethical grounds, he said.

South Africa: SA, Botswana to Ship Elephant Over to Angola

Story Filed: Thursday, September 12, 2002 4:20 PM EST

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa Sep 12, 2002 (AENS via COMTEX) -- In June next year, 200 elephants and other wild animals from South Africa and Botswana will find themselves on an epic voyage to Angola.

South African defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota has offered the naval ship, SAS Outeniqua, to relocate the animals to Angola as part of Operation Noah's Ark.

The operation is the brainchild of the Kissama Foundation which was founded in 1996 by a group of Angolans and South Africans concerned about Angola's national parks and conservation.

The aim of Operation Noah's Ark is to replace wildlife poached during the Angolan civil war.

"This will help Angola to fast-track the restoration of our national parks and to create new job opportunities in the tourism and conservation sectors," said Angolan ambassador Izak dos Anjos in a statement.

A two-day road trip will take the animals from Tuli game reserve in Botswana and Madikwe game reserve in South Africa, to Walvis Bay in Namibia.

They will then be loaded on a ship and set sail for Luanda in Angola, from where they will be driven 70km away to their new home at the Quiama National Park. The park covers 1,2 million hectares on the Atlantic Ocean. The entire trip is expected to take 20 days.

The animals will include roan antelope, eland, reedbuck, waterbuck and possibly cheetah.

The Kissama Foundation also plans to move forest buffalo from other parts of Angola to Quiama.

Copyright (c) 2002 AENS. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2002, AENS Tourism Update, all rights reserved.

Experts Plan to Ship 200 More Elephants
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
by Justin Arenstein
Copyright © 2002, Africa News Service, all rights reserved.

Luanda, Jan 08, 2001 (African Eye News Service/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Wildlife experts plan to ship 200 more elephants and 100 other wild animals from southern Africa to Angola to help restock the country's war-ravaged game parks as part of the ongoing 'Noah's Ark' operation.

Kissama Foundation spokesman Professor Wouter van Hoven said the new operation would use cargo ships and amphibious landing craft instead of giant cargo planes to keep costs down and increase the numbers of animals moved.

The elephants will come from Botswana, while giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and ostriches, amongst others, will come from South Africa, said Prof. Van Hoven.

All the animals are destined for Quicama National Park, near Angola's capital of Luanda.

Relocating animals to Quicama has been underway for two years, but earlier shipments were limited to eight elephants per Ilyushin-76 cargo plane.

Only 100 have been moved to the new park because of the expenses involved.

The Kissama Foundation was founded in 1996 by a group of South Africans and Angolans wanting to conserve Angola's natural resources.

Action plan to preserve elephant, rhino soon

The Rising Nepal, http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/pageloader.php?file=2005/09/12/topstories/main12
By Our Correspondent
September 11, 2005

The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) will come up with an action plan for the preservation of elephant and rhino within 2005.

Surya Bahadur Pandey, Assistant Management Officer at DNPWC said there are about 180 to 185 elephants in the country, they are working out a plan to preserve the species through habitat development.

The action plan in the offing aims at promoting conservation of different wildlife species one at a time, Pandey said. The action plan for the rhino preservation has been presented before the Ministry and that it is more likely to operate this year, said Pandey.

Likewise, the tiger action plan has been into operation for the last six years and it is in the process of reviewing the works carried out in the past six years. Besides this, it also looks forward to rewriting of further plans to take ahead the conservation drive. The plan for snow leopard is under implementation since two years.

The global threat towards the depletion of wildlife has prompted the department to work out action oriented plans to preserve species of animals that are on the verge of extinction, said Pandey.

Mozambique Plans to Reintroduce Elephants Into National Park
Monday, January 07, 2002
Copyright © 2002, Xinhua News Agency, all rights reserved.

MAPUTO, Jan 7, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Mozambican wildlife authorities have floated the possibility of reintroduction of elephants into the Gorongosa National Park in the central Province of Sofala in a bid to repopulate the park with the species.

Many thousands of animals, including elephants, buffalos, rhinoceros, lions, leopards, giraffes and antelopes, were killed at the park during the civil war in 1992. The park also suffered heavy destruction to its infrastructure.

Afonso Madope, national director for wildlife conservation at the tourism ministry, told reporters on Monday that currently work is under way to monitor Gorongosa wildlife and habitats and to rehabilitate some of the damaged infrastructure in the Chitengo tourist camp.

This camp lies in a flood-prone area, and consequently the camp infrastructure was swamped at the height of 2000 floods.

The wildlife authorities are considering the possibility of purchasing animals in Zimbabwe or South Africa to restock Gorongosa, which was once considered as one of the finest wildlife reserves in southern Africa.

Ahead of the restocking, the management department has taken measures such as the purchase of equipment for rehabilitation, and is busy recruiting game wardens.

Foreign Poachers Threaten Wildlife in Mozambique
January 03, 2002
Copyright © 2002, Xinhua News Agency, all rights reserved.

MAPUTO, Jan 3, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Poachers from Tanzania and Somalia have infiltrated the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado where they are attacking the province's rich wildlife, particularly its elephants.

Mozambican official news agency AIM quoted a source in the Cabo Delgado provincial government as saying that large numbers of Tanzania and Somali poachers slip over the river Rovuma, which marks the border between Tanzania and Mozambique, taking advantage of the almost total absence of border controls.

Some of the poachers first enter Niassa province, and the then cross the Lugenda River into Cabo Delgado.

Game wardens in Cabo Delgado are no match for the poachers who, according to the government source, are heavily armed, including with AK-47 automatic rifles.

He thought the situation was serious enough to warrant urgent action, beefing up the numbers and fire power of the local wardens so that they can do an effective job of protecting wildlife.

"In the frontier regions, the situation is alarming. The poachers are decimating the animals", said the provincial government source.

Up to now, none of the foreign poachers have been arrested "precisely because they are armed and our wardens are not", said the source.

He called for close cooperation between the provincial directorate of agriculture (responsible for wildlife), and the customs and immigration services "in order to staunch these illegal activities".

DNA Evidence Suggests Three Types of Elephants Roam Africa

Story Filed: Thursday, September 12, 2002 10:39 PM EST

SAN DIEGO, Sep 11, 2002 (ASCRIBE NEWS via COMTEX) -- Using DNA extracted from the dung of wild elephants in Africa, biologists at the University of California, San Diego have determined that three different types of elephants exist on the African continent.

Their discovery, detailed in a paper to be published in the October 7 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, affirms the existence of the well-known savanna elephant and the recently recognized forest elephant of central Africa. But it also suggests that the elephants of west Africa, which live in both the forest and savanna, represent a third, genetically distinct population that has been diverging from the other two groups for some two million years.

Biologists and conservationists now widely accept the designation of two species of elephants: Asian and African. The UCSD discovery could, if confirmed by additional genetic evidence, split the African group into three distinct species or subspecies.

"This discovery is important, because the west African elephants are threatened with extinction as a result of human activities," says David S. Woodruff, a professor of biology and chair of the Ecology, Behavior and Evolution Section of UCSD's Division of Biological Sciences. "If these findings are confirmed, zoologists and conservation managers will need to recognize three different species of African elephants, all of which need protection because their numbers are declining."

"Knowing that forest elephants are very different genetically from savanna elephants means that overpopulation in some southern African savanna parks should not lead to a relaxation of the protection for elephants elsewhere, especially in the forests," says Lori S. Eggert, the first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. "These populations are not exchangeable, either ecologically or genetically."

Eggert traveled to Africa to collect her samples while working as a doctoral student in Woodruff's UCSD laboratory, which specializes in the development of non-invasive techniques to collect and assess genetic information from dangerous or difficult to observe wildlife populations. Wild elephants fit this category since they can kill humans when threatened and are almost impossible to see in the dense vegetation of the forest regions. Because the fibrous vegetation eaten by the elephants continuously scrapes cells from their intestines into their dung, Eggert, Woodruff and Caylor A. Rasner, a research assistant in Woodruff's laboratory, were able to extract their DNA and genotype the dung samples. In a separate study, more intensive genotyping methods are being used to help African wildlife managers more accurately estimate the number of remaining forest elephants to improve conservation planning.

"Since it's difficult to see forest elephants in the dense vegetation, we don't have solid census data from many populations, including some of the largest ones," explains Eggert. "Only a quarter to a third of African elephants are forest elephants, so there are only about 120,000 to 150,000 of them. They live in a habitat that is rapidly being logged and converted to agriculture. Increasingly, forests in Africa are becoming fragmented and elephant populations are being isolated in a sea of farms and villages." Wildlife managers estimate that 400,000 to 500,000 elephants now live in Africa. The majority of these African elephants, about 250,000 to 350,000, are savanna elephants, while western elephants are estimated to number only about 12,000. Forest elephants are significantly smaller than the savanna forms; have longer, thinner and straighter tusks, smaller and more rounded ears, a flatter forehead region and a larger number of toenail-like structures on their feet. West African elephants, which the UCSD study suggests are genetically and geographically isolated from elephants elsewhere on the continent, have been described as morphologically "indeterminate," or having both forest and savanna forms.

Their geographic isolation may have been caused by the desertification of a region in west Africa called the Dahomey Gap that separated the forests in central Africa from the forests in west Africa. Other potential barriers between the two regions include the Niger River Delta and the volcanic region of southwestern Cameroon. Based on their genetic data, the UCSD biologists believe that the west African populations have been isolated for as long as 2.4 million years.

The UCSD scientists note in their paper that while their genetic analyses of the mitochondrial, or maternally inherited, DNA sequences and nuclear microsatellite loci (short repetitive segments of DNA that show differences among populations and individuals) suggest the existence of "three recognizable taxa of African elephants," their results need to be confirmed before a formal taxonomic revision of the African elephants is proposed. That confirmation would require examination of additional nuclear DNA sequences which are inherited paternally as well as maternally.

"If the level of genetic differentiation between the three taxa identified here is confirmed to reflect several million years of divergence, it will be appropriate to treat them as species in recognition of their long independent evolutionary trajectories," they write in their paper. Because nearly all of the African elephants in zoos are savanna elephants, the results do not have implications for elephants now in captivity. Zoos do not have forest elephants, largely because they are so elusive, and only three western elephants are now in captivity at the Abidjan Zoo in Cote d'Ivoire. However, the results have widespread implications for the management of all three types of wild African elephants. Although the ivory trade ban has slowed the slaughter of elephants, some countries have appealed for permission to resume the harvest.

"Only the savanna elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe in southern Africa have been considered for limited resumption of the ivory trade," says Eggert, "and they have been allowed this only because their management has been so successful that it has resulted in elephant populations that are stable or growing too large."

"If current trends of forest conversion and human-elephant competition for necessities like habitat and water continue, all elephants other than those in the highly managed protected areas of southern Africa will continue to be endangered. Even a limited resumption of the ivory trade could lead to increased hunting of forest elephants for ivory. Thus, while all three genetically distinct types of elephants are threatened, those in west Africa are now highly endangered."

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Genetic Evidence for Two Species of Elephant in Africa

Alfred L. Roca,1 Nicholas Georgiadis,2 Jill Pecon-Slattery,1 Stephen J. O'Brien1*

Elephants from the tropical forests of Africa are morphologically distinct from savannah or bush elephants. Dart-biopsy samples from 195 free-ranging African elephants in 21 populations were examined for DNA sequence variation in four nuclear genes (1732 base pairs). Phylogenetic distinctions between African forest elephant and savannah elephant populations corresponded to 58% of the difference in the same genes between elephant genera Loxodonta (African) and Elephas (Asian). Large genetic distance, multiple genetically fixed nucleotide site differences, morphological and habitat distinctions, and extremely limited hybridization of gene flow between forest and savannah elephants support the recognition and conservation management of two African species: Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis.

1 Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
2 Mpala Research Center, Post Office Box 555, Nanyuki, Kenya.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: obrien@ncifcrf.gov
Summary of article in volume 293 Science 1473-1477 (August 24, 2001)

Africa's Forest Elephants Called Separate Species
By Reuters
Friday, August 24, 2001

WASHINGTON — Elephants dwelling in Africa's lush tropical rain forests are genetically distinct from the better-known elephants that roam the continent's grasslands and merit being classified as a separate species, scientists said Thursday.

All of Africa's approximately half a million elephants until now have been considered a single species that officially is listed as "threatened."

But a team of elephant experts and geneticists, in a study appearing in the journal Science, found that the two types of African elephants are no more related at the genetic level than lions and tigers and should be regarded as distinct species. The researchers said the genetic evidence indicates the two African species diverged about 2.6 million years ago.

This means the world has three species of elephants — the world's largest land animal — including the Asian elephant.

The designation of Africa's forest elephants and those living on the vast savannas as separate species has important conservation implications, particularly because many forest elephants live in forests in politically unstable Central African nations, conservationists said.

Scientists long have noted how different the forest elephants look from their savanna cousins. Nick Georgiadis, a biologist at the Mpala Research Center in Kenya, said he recalls his reaction when he first saw forest elephants.

"I was certainly accustomed to seeing savanna elephants and was amazed. The forest elephants are totally different. It's a completely different animal," he said in a telephone interview from South Africa.

Forest elephants are smaller than the savanna elephants --which grow up to 11 feet at the shoulder, 25 feet long and weigh six tons — and have more rounded ears and straighter, thinner tusks. The skull shape also differs between the two.

GENETIC DIFFERENCES SOUGHT

Georgiadis joined with geneticists from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Frederick, Maryland, to test whether genetic differences accompanied the morphological differences.

He spent eight years collecting tissue samples from 195 elephants from 21 separate populations in 11 of the 37 nations where the behemoths live.

To collect the samples, Georgiadis shot darts into elephants in the wild. The darts retrieved a plug of skin then popped out and fell to the ground, leaving the animal unhurt.

NCI scientists Stephen O'Brien, Alfred Roca and Jill Pecon-Slattery sequenced portions of four genes from each of the samples to measure the genetic differences. The DNA differences between the two types of African elephants were not quite as broad as the genetic divergence between human beings and chimpanzees, for example, but was as great as the differences between tigers and lions, they found.

"They're really quite distinct," O'Brien said.

"It seems that there is no question that reclassifying the African elephant as two separate species is warranted," added University of Washington conservation biologist Samuel Wasser.

The differences between the forest and savanna elephants is more than half as big as the differences between the African elephants and the Asian elephant, the researchers said.

The data also indicated there was scant inter-breeding between the African forest and savanna elephants.

Most people have never seen a forest elephant. Only one lives in captivity, housed in the Paris Zoo. Of the roughly 500,000 elephants in Africa, about 150,000 are forest elephants and 350,000 are savanna elephants, experts said.

Most of the forest elephants can be found in the dense forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Cameroon, according to Peter Stephenson, coordinator of the World Wildlife Fund's African elephant program. The largest concentrations of savanna elephants are in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya, he added.

"The forest elephant is actually found in much more dangerous territory," in terms of human threats from wars, logging, mining, development and poaching, Stephenson said.

The scientists proposed the scientific name Loxodonta cyclotis for the forest elephants and retaining the existing species name Loxodonta africana for the savanna elephants.

Copyright 2001 — Reuters

ELEPHANTS IN THE MIST

The [Calcutta]Telegraph, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050910/asp/opinion/story_5217866.asp
September 10, 2005
The Kabini Reservoir is a unique phenomenon of a man-made waterbody benefiting wildlife, writes Suniti Bhushan Datta

The early morning mist rising off the Kabini Reservoir gives the land a surreal look. The sun has not risen yet, and the grassy banks of the reservoir are calm. A dark shape looms out of the bamboo on the fringes of the forest; the mist swirls around as it makes it’s way slowly down to the water’s edge. The elephant has spent the night browsing on the juicy bamboo leaves and needs a drink of water before retreating into the cool depths of the forest. The rising sun soon bums away the last tendrils of mist, beginning another hot day at the Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka.

In a country with a population exceeding a billion people, there is scant place for an animal as large as an elephant to survive. Once spanning most of the Indian subcontinent, elephant habitats have shrunk to a few scattered forests in northern, north-eastern and southern India. The healthiest population, by far, exists in the diverse forests of south India. Ranging from dry teak to tropical evergreen, these forests are home to about 15 per cent of the world’s Asiatic elephant population.

Elephant society is typically headed by the eldest and most experienced female in the herd, known as the matriarch. The herd consists of females, their calves and sub-adult animals. Bull elephants are driven out of the herd when they reach maturity and typically live solitarily, away from the herd. The matriarch knows, through years of experience, which areas will have food in a certain season, the location of water during the dry season and places where the herd will be safe.

Over the centuries, herds have followed rigid migration routes that take them through areas of optimum food and water during the course of the year. These routes are ingrained in the matriarch’s memory. But, in modern times, these routes have been fragmented by man-made obstructions, such as coffee plantations and human settlements. As a result, elephants are increasingly coming into direct conflict with man. The fallout is human cas