Elephant Country News

NDTV.com -- http://www.ndtv.com/environment/Wildlife.asp?id=84335&callid=1

Trade in ivory products has been banned for the last 13 years but an Indian diplomat posted in Africa has clearly decided to ignore that.

Customs officials have seized a huge consignment of elephant ivory shipped home by the diplomat Anand Prabha Roy.

�Under the Indian law, import of ivory is completely banned and we cannot allow this. We are issuing a show cause notice to him and have also referred to the wildlife authorities. Action will be taken if he is not in a position to produce any documents,� said Atul Dixit, Additional Commissioner Customs.

The wildlife authorities are also keen that strict action is taken.

�We examined the consignment and all the products are of African ivory and protected under the Wildlife Protection Act,� said B S Guram, Assistant Director, Department of Wildlife.

Although ivory trade is completely banned in India but this consignment detained by customs authorities had two huge tusks of five and a half feet each and elephant jaws with teeth.

The wildlife authorities have recommended action and it is for the custom authorities to act now.

Saving the Indian elephant
The Economist
January 12, 2006

THERE are, by one count, 58 insurgent groups in the seven states that make up India's north-east, a region of bewildering ethnic diversity. In recent months, in the Karbi Anglong district of Assam state, more than 100 people have been killed in clashes between ethnic Karbis and Dimasas. But Assam is also home to glorious biodiversity. Tigers, rhinos and elephants still roam the forests. They too are victims of the insurgencies, and wage their own conflicts with their human neighbours.

In Sonitpur, a district on the North Bank of the Brahmaputra river, the war between people and elephants has claimed nearly 150 human and 80 elephant lives since 1996. About 2,000 elephants live in the area. But their homelands in the thickly wooded Himalayan foothills, despite being legally protected as reserved forests or wildlife sanctuaries, have been invaded by poachers, timber thieves and settlers. Short of the food they need to sustain their mighty frames, elephants have taken to snacking in the paddy-fields, villages and tea plantations of the valleys.

Moving along time-worn paths, the huge creatures, often so gentle and amiable, are a fearful menace to the humans in their path, and to crops and livelihoods. At the Tarajulie tea estate, Ravinder Singh, the manager, says the elephants started visiting five or six years ago, coming just after the October-November rice harvest. Now they come throughout the year. A herd of 37, browsing peacefully in a bit of jungle at the edge of the estate one recent afternoon, look harmless enough. But at 2am one night last September, close to the nearby village of Ranganijar, several elephants overran one little farmhouse. Cyril Tanwar, a 45-year-old man, sleeping with his young son, was crushed to death. "We're not harming them, why should they harm us?" asks his sister-in-law.

To help answer that question, local activists, helped by WWF, an international conservation group, have been proselytising on the elephants' behalf. They have created, for example, an educational puppet show, illustrating, among other horrors, the dangers of distilling alcohol when there are elephants about: they are boozers as well as gourmands. In fact, most locals do not need persuading that the root of the problem is human encroachment rather than elephant greed. Elephants are still widely worshipped in the form of the god Ganesha. Near Ranganijar, a little temple was erected to Ganesha, over the grave of a small calf that died in an irrigation culvert in a tea estate. The god was not appeased: elephants destroyed it.

Elephant protection is hazardous. Fifty "anti-depredation squads", each of a dozen local villagers willing to spend their nights on elephant watch, have been equipped with firecrackers and searchlights and trained in steering hungry herds from fields, homes and stills. Some are helped by kunkis, trained, domesticated elephants. Three such�two adults and a calf�went into battle at Tarajulie. The mahout riding the lead elephant, armed with a shotgun, was fuelled with local firewater. Local lads joined in the fun, releasing deafening firecrackers. After one false start, the herd emerged from the trees. One rogue, an elephant from another herd in "must", ie, on heat, who had already had his way with one of the herd, stayed behind, to terrorise the tea-workers. The others fled single-file, lolloping across a river back to their familiar forests.

Elephants can be deterred by electric fences, where they can be afforded, or, it is hoped, by a rope smeared with a pungent mixture of grease and hot chilli peppers. This technique�a success in Africa�has been imported by WWF. Even obedient kunkis refuse orders to breach the eye-stinging ropes. An experimental fence is guarding a field of sugar cane, which elephants like as much as alcohol.

Conservationists, however, know that all of this is a sticking-plaster, not a cure. In the long run, only afforestation can save the elephants. By the WWF's estimate, 29% of the lowland forest in Sonitpur was lost or degraded between 1991 and 2001. Workers at a local air-force base are unabashed when caught removing firewood from "fallen trees" (with suspiciously clean stumps) in a protected patch of forest.

Illegal settlers, similarly, seem unconcerned about their future, fencing off land they have cleared. Some have been evicted in the past, and simply moved back. In this region, most are Bodos, a people for whom insurgents have been fighting for an independent homeland, though a ceasefire is now in place. Analysts believe the encroachments were part of a planned expansion of settlements to lay claim to such a homeland, though Sonitpur is not in fact part of the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District, declared in 2003.

It seems too much to hope that the Bodos will move to their designated district. Nor does the government show much sign of enforcing its laws. The money allocated in Delhi for far-off Sonitpur seems to get lost in transit. But without more concerted action, the war between elephants and humans can only worsen. And, watching the despondent line of harried elephants from Tarajulie, heading off at dusk to forage for food in their depleted forest, it is easy to guess who will be the losers.

Kenyans, elephants clash in struggle for food and water
The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/01/13/kenyans_elephants_clash_in_struggle_for_food_and_water/
By Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press
January 13, 2006

NAIROBI -- Elephants in Kenyan national parks and reserves are leaving their drought-stricken sanctuaries to search for water and food near human settlements, where they have attacked starving people protecting their crops.

UN agencies have warned of hunger across the region because of drought and say the situation in eastern Kenya is particularly serious. People reportedly have died of hunger during what officials say is the country's worst drought in 22 years.

Connie Maina, spokeswoman for Kenya Wildlife Services, said yesterday that elephants killed two people last week after leaving Tsavo West National Park. Problems also have been reported in the Lamu, Laikipia, and Narok districts, she said.

Kenya Wildlife Services personnel have been deployed to several areas in response, she said.

''We are trying to do ground and air patrol to ensure that the problem animals do not cause any havoc and to try to drive the elephants back to the park," Maina said. ''This involves the use of a lot of vehicles and a helicopter that flies low and pushes them in the direction where we want them to go. It is a very expensive operation."

The drought has not killed wildlife, and conservation officials have not had problems with smaller animals. ''The situation is still manageable," Maina said.

African elephants are the largest living land mammals, weighing up to 6.5 tons. An elephant eats approximately 5 percent of its body weight and drinks 30 to 50 gallons of water a day, according to the Africa Wildlife Foundation.

The foundation says there are 300,000 to 600,000 elephants on the continent -- about half the estimated total 40 years ago.

On Jan. 1, President Mwai Kibaki said food shortages would affect some 2.5 million Kenyans in northern districts, and he declared the crisis a national disaster. The crisis hit as Kenya forecast a surplus harvest of nearly 69,000 tons of maize. Farmers in other parts of the country were waiting in lines for up to two weeks to sell their maize, the nation's staple food, to the national cereals board.

The Kibaki administration has been accused by lawmakers, citizens, and the media of failing to respond effectively to the worsening situation in the north. They say the government had adequate warning of the problem but seemed to respond only after media images in December moved the public to raise money and food for the affected people.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Program, urged east Africa countries to invest in and rehabilitate their ''natural or nature capital" to protect vulnerable communities against drought. He urged donor countries to help.

''So much of nature's water and rain-supplying services have been damaged, destroyed, or cleared," Toepfer said, according to a statement from the UN program.

He added: ''These facts are especially poignant when you factor in the impact of climate change, which is triggering more extreme weather

Resolve the Conflict Between Humans And Elephants

The Post (Lusaka)
EDITORIAL
January 31, 2006
Posted to the web January 31, 2006
Lusaka [The Post] -- http://allafrica.com/stories/200601310280.html

There is need to seriously address the problem of elephants invading or raiding people's fields and destroying their crops. And no life should be lost to elephants carelessly. There is need for us to move away from a policy that gave a high priority to protecting elephants with very little regard to the welfare and lives of people.

The economic realities of elephant damage create a dynamic problem without a clear solution, despite the wide range of attempted methods.

Elephants compete with human beings for water, food and space resulting in an expansion of the elephant/human interface. And the expansion of this interface is resulting in heightened elephant/human conflict, requiring difficult management decisions concerning how to accommodate both elephants and humans. Elephants migrate seasonally to follow the availability of water and preferred foods. This migration pattern often extends beyond the parks. And because elephants move great distances, it is difficult to confine them to small parks. Even with fences, crop fields adjacent to the parks are likely to be raided, especially during seasons when favoured foods are at the optimal stage of growth. Inevitably, the sharpest conflict and greatest losses seem to occur to these parks bordering villages. This raises a serious and complex philosophical issue about the extent to which humans and elephants should compete with each other for bare survival, that is, to avoid starvation, versus an impact of elephants on the economic welfare of humans where no starvation is at stake.

Where starvation is a possible risk, there appears to be no solution other than weighing human life against the potential extinction of elephants. Fortunately, in this case, this doesn't seem to be the problem.

Clearly, in the case of economic impact, there needs to be a way for people who are losing crops and other resources to elephants to instead gain some compensation by limiting the destruction by elephants and/or allowing people with losses to gain from elephants' presence.

If this is not done, in desperation people will adopt methods that may threaten the continued existence of elephants. We know that in desperation people have been using all sorts of methods, including shooting in the air. With increasing density of elephants and more frequent conflict, elephants have become more aggressive requiring more technical and systematic methods to repel them.

In order for our people to be willing to sacrifice their potential earnings from crop and livestock production for the benefit of elephants, they need to experience some economic benefit from elephants. And with human population increasing, wildlife areas that do not contribute to human economic welfare inevitably will face a lot of problems in protecting animals.

We have no alternative but to seriously start to address this problem. We know there have been some efforts in this direction by the government but it doesn't appear to be enough or working well. In May last year, the government introduced elephant sport hunting in Chiawa, Rufunsa and Lupande game management areas, which was aimed at benefiting the local people. The government stated that the primary concern was to fight the perceived injustices elephants had inflicted on the people through the destruction of their crop and in some cases loss of human life. A statutory instrument was issued to this effect. We are yet to see the benefits from all this trickle down to the people for whom it was intended.

Urgent measures need to be taken, especially where loss of human life is concerned, and ensure that humans and their crops are protected from elephants by any means necessary. This is not an easy matter but a solution has to be found to it.

Spare special thought for poor elephants
by WYCLIFFE MUGA
January 14, 2006
Kenya Daily Nation
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=25&newsid=65136

For some years now, I have been one of a small group of writers who argue regularly that the government�s failure to re-introduce sports hunting in Kenya is the single biggest failure of its wildlife conservation policy: That the money that would roll in from the immense profits that sport hunting would bring to Kenya, is just what is needed to fund both wildlife and environmental conservation efforts.

We have pointed out that Kenya is the only country in the Eastern and Southern Africa zone that does not allow sport hunting. And that such hunting is no threat to wildlife populations since it usually targets only old males and leaves the younger animals to breed.

We have repeatedly provided verifiable statistics to prove that a single game hunter would bring more money into the country than thirty (yes, 30) "all-inclusive package tour" visitors sunning themselves at some Kenyan beach resort.

And we have particularly emphasized that the local communities living in areas near the game parks would be the biggest beneficiaries since the regulations governing sport hunting usually provide for such communities to receive a portion of the income for their "development projects".

Lastly, we have pointed out that it is high time some parliamentary committee took a really close look at the suspicious relationship between the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and certain "animal welfare" NGOs with seemingly limitless financial resources, which appear to dictate Kenya�s wildlife policies.

The reasons why a major structural change in KWS policies is long overdue are often revealed by events that have no direct relation to wildlife conservation.

For example, in a recent contribution to the debate on what the government should be doing about the famine in much of Northern Kenya, I argued that the State should consider having a clear and deliberate policy of using Kenya�s excess herbivore populations, as part of its continuing famine relief food programme.

I particularly had in mind, the surplus 3,000 buffaloes in the Lake Nakuru National Park and the 400 surplus elephants in Kwale's Shimba Hills National Park, these latter having been the subject of a massive (and very expensive) translocation in late 2005.

The widespread bushmeat trade is proof that Kenyans in general have no objection to game meat. So my conclusion was, "� at a time when poor people in the country are starving, because of a drought which killed all the crops they had planted � the solution is obvious: Kenya should invite sport hunters to shoot all those surplus buffaloes and elephants, and what we should see leaving the game parks is not flatbed lorries carrying live animals to another game park, but rather covered lorries carrying fresh game meat to the areas affected by famine �Those 3,000 buffaloes and 400 elephants could feed a lot of hungry Kenyans."

That seemed an adequate enough perspective to me at the time. But then, a member of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) supplied me with data which seemed to justify a revising of my proposed solution to the need for a protein component in relief food.

Although it is tempting to categorise buffaloes and elephants together as "herbivores", when it comes to any policy which involves shooting elephants (whether in culling, or in sport hunting) there are special considerations which simply cannot be brushed aside.

The odd thing is that these considerations relate more to psychology than to ecology.

For whereas there can be no doubt that an over-large elephant population will prove destructive to any ecosystem, it would appear that elephants and humans have so much in common, that elephants may warrant a different population control policy from that which may be applied to buffaloes. We all know that elephants in Kenya only make headlines when they kill innocent farmers.

But from AERP long-term monitoring and research, a great deal is now known about the social and cognitive abilities of elephants.

Elephants live in multi-tiered societies. Such societies represent some of the most socially complex and diverse forms of organisation; embedded within them are the matriarchal family units which act as co-operative units for the rearing of the young.

Families and their social propensities are diverse and individual; a high degree of relatedness underlies families but as important are the long-term friendships and alliances formed by individuals within and among families.

Elephants are highly intelligent, possess complex emotions such as joy, anger, grief, sympathy, playfulness and revenge, exhibit individual personalities and are unusually long-lived.

Using scores of different vocalizations, expressions, and gestures, elephants are able to communicate specific information and emotions, and they use these to reinforce bonds, care for youngsters, reconcile differences among friends, form coalitions against aggressors, coordinate group movement, and to keep in contact over long distances.

Elephants recognise their own image in a mirror indicating that they are self-aware, and observations suggest that they have some capacity for empathy and anticipatory planning, including the possibility of imagining future events such as pain to themselves and others.

Like human beings, elephants suffer long-term psychological effects of trauma and abuse, which may be expressed in the form of inappropriate and hostile behaviour. It would seem that killing an elephant is a different thing from killing a buffalo. In one case, you might as well be slaughtering a cow; in another, you would be killing an animal which shares with you many of the characteristics that define your humanity.

However these scientific findings must be weighed against the equally significant fact of science, that an awareness of property rights is not among the elephants� cognitive abilities. And that in many parts of the country, rogue elephants continue their reign of terror beyond the game parks.

This serves to remind us of something easily forgotten: there can be no easy answers to something as complex as managing wildlife populations, especially in a poor country with a fast-increasing human population like Kenya.

The elephant corridor - cause for concern

The elephant corridor is understood by villagers as the movement of elephants moving from Dandeli wildlife sanctuary to Kyasanur tank area in Hanagal range limits of Haveri Forest Division during November- February months.

The periodical movement of elephants as observed by the forest department and repeated conflicts between farmers and elephants for the crop (almost every year) in this corridor is a serious matter, which needs concrete and urgent attention and measures from the forest department.

The movement of two to three herds of elephants (numbering about 20-23) in Oralgi, Gunjavati, Kyathanalli villages of Mundagod and Katur range forests in Yellapur division nearby has become a great cause for worry for the local villagers after they raided the paddy and sugarcane crops, banana and coconut plantations and killed three farmers as well.

The movement of the elephants was reported every year during November to February in this area, which adjoins Haveri division on one side and extends into Sirsi division areas on the other side.

During the four months (November to February) either the crop ripens or is harvested and staked in the respective fields, which leaves the farmers concerned about their produce.

Elephants being naturally fond of paddy, resort to the crop raids and also eat the staked paddy.

Luckily since the area does not have banana and coconut crops, the loss in this respect was reportedly very less.

But the last month witnessed the raid of both standing and harvested crops of Ramanna Mugudam, Kuber Parasappa Patil, Hanumantappa Jattappa Kyasanur, Ramachandra Patil, Chandrakant Venkatesh Hegde and the total loss estimated to be more than Rs 20 lakh.

Three deaths were reported (one each in Kiravatti, Mundagod and Katur range forest) during the last one-and-a-half months, which is cause for great concern.

However, according to the Conservator of Forests, Kanara Circle, the elephant movement is monitored.

Wide publicity is being given to educate the people. The local villagers are also being educated through contact meetings and advised not to approach or tease the elephants, direct torch light at the animals for whatever reasons so that at least loss of human life, injury, etc could be avoided, which otherwise could lead to lot of tension in the area leading to law and order problems.

As per the forest department observation, in the last year the elephants visited the area around January 2005 and camped near Kyasanur tank in Hangal range limits of Haveri Division and gave birth to two babies (one each in January and February).

They left the area only after full neonatal nurturing toward end of March 2005.

Incidentally the said tank area has good bamboo growth and Ficus trees, which constitute excellent feed for the elephants.

Crackers and torches are being supplied to villagers towards the protection of their crops and all possible measures are being taken up, says the conservator of forests.

He added that a number of departmental staff were deployed to monitor the elephant movement and help people.

But he admits the limitation of staff (numberwise) and inability to engage the departmental elephants to drive the wild elephants on the ground of non feasibility, keeping the number of elephants in herds.

But the villagers in the area (neighbouring villages in the elephant corridor) strongly believe �What one could not do, the department could do. What the department could do, it could do so effectively with villagers

Fear of Poaching As South Africa Moves to Introduce Culling
January 31, 2006
The East African (Nairobi)
http://allafrica.com/stories/200601310878.html
By GAKUU MATHENGE

An elephant that strayed into a village from the Aberdares in Kenya. Anti-elephant sentiments run deep in rural areas that are witnessing intensified human-wildlife conflict.

The likelihood of South Af-rica reintroducing the culling of its elephant population has raised fears that the move could set a trend and lead to a rise in poaching in countries like Kenya, which have large but not unmanageable herds.

South African National Parks (Sanpark) has declared an "18-month public consultative period" to debate whether or not to allow elephant culling, including hunting, which were banned in 1994. Sanpark said it was considering reintroducing sport hunting as one way of culling its nearly 200,000-strong elephant population to slow down environmental destruction by the animals.

Kenya banned all manner of game hunting in the early 1970s for fear that poachers would kill off the country's elephant and rhino populations for their horns and tusks.

The head of the Elephant Project at Kenya Wildlife Services, Patrick Omondi, told The EastAfrican last Wednesday that the government would not consider culling its herd of about 30,000 as the country can comfortably accommodate 50,000. But he said that the introduction of sport hunting in any country in Southern Africa would escalate the threat of poaching across the continent.

Kenya has been at the forefront in opposing culling and the reintroduction of hunting or sale of ivory stockpiles, citing unstable neighbours and porous national borders.

According to Mr Omondi, the country is holding 37 tonnes of ivory but won't sell a even a single kilo.

"Selling is not an option; but we have been considering establishing an ivory museum or selling it to a consortium of donors and using the money for conservation. No decision has been made yet," said Mr Omondi.

He said it was difficult to attach monetary value to the stockpiles in the absence of a legal ivory market.

The stand by Sanpark has already raised the stakes in favour of lobby groups that support culling in Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho, where conflicts between animals and humans have placed governments under pressure to control elephant populations.

Although the KWS says it has no reason as yet to reduce its elephant herds, the cost of keeping the animals within the designated areas is placing the organisation's budget under severe strain.

"Animal control costs the KWS Ksh8 million-Ksh10 million ($111,000-$139,000) every year, a substantial chunk of it going to elephant control," said Mr Omondi.

That amounts to about Ksh100 million ($13.9 million) every year spent on operations involving crews in choppers to drive animals off farm lands. "So far, KWS has also constructed 388km of electric elephant fences at various ranges across the country.This is in addition to another 1,000km to control all types of animals. It costs Ksh1.5 million ($20,833) to erect a kilometre of electric fence," added Mr Omondi.

In calling for the debate on culling, Sanpark argues that high elephant numbers - with their long lifespans, need for vast roaming ranges and huge appetites - had not only become an environmental menace - clearing entire bushlands and converting them into bare grasslands with no tree left standing - but were also becoming a threat to other species.

The debate in South Africa has already taken an acrimonious turn, with animal-rights activists arguing that if culling is not allowed, the country is headed for an "environmental holocaust."

In Kenya, where anti-elephant sentiments run deep in rural areas that are witnessing intensified human-wildlife conflict, a culling policy would pass in record time were it to be presented to parliament.

The negative anti-wildlife sentiment, a significant part of it directed at the elephant, was captured by recent decisions in parliament on wildlife protection and compensation for people injured or suffering losses in conflicts with elephants.

Leading scientists to debate elephants' future
January 17, 2006
South Africa BuaNews Online
http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=06011711451005&coll=buanew06
By Themba Gadebe, tel: (012) 314 2267

Ten of the world's leading elephant scientists are expected to meet in Cape Town tomorrow to debate the future of South Africa's elephants.

The scientists have been asked to demonstrate scientific evidence in support of or against a number of propositions to reduce elephant populations in the country.

They are to look at whether the country has too many elephants and if they are really causing damage to biodiversity.

Also, they will be determining if indeed action is needed to reduce the populations and which management options are most appropriate.

The Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department (DEAT) said however, scientists from SANParks had already recommended that the populations be reduced through translocation, contraception, range expansion and culling.

The department has also indicated that the elephant population in the Kruger National Park was increasing at a rate of seven percent every year, and "doubling roughly" every ten years.

It further estimates that by 2012 there may be as many as 20 000 elephants in Kruger alone, and by 2019 as many as 30 000.

Tomorrow's debate, dubbed the Elephant Science Round Table, arises from a concern by Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk that stakeholders have insisted that his policy guideline should be based on scientific evidence.

Stakeholders felt that there appeared to be little consensus among leading scientists.

The Minister indicated that his final decision would be based on the available science, ethical and social considerations, indigenous knowledge, environmental and tourism impacts.

The department said it was likely that more scientific dialogue would take place before the draft policy was published for public comment later this year.

The elephant debate has been going on for a while with animal rights groups pleading for the elimination of culling as a possible option to manage the country's "oversized" elephant population. - BuaNews

Drought threatens wildlife
January 11, 2005
News24.com
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,6119,2-11-1447_1861349,00.html

Nairobi - A searing drought that has put millions of people across East Africa at risk of famine is threatening Kenya's famed wildlife herds as they stray from protected areas to forage for scarce food and water, say officials on Wednesday.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said conditions in several of the country's best-known parks and reserves were such that animals, mainly elephants, were increasingly coming into conflict with residents of nearby villages and farms, posing risks to both the human and fauna populations.

Connie Maina of the KWS said: "We have put out an alert for increased human-wildlife conflicts in the country. Wildlife, notably elephants, have left parks in search of water after the dry spell in the country.

"We have deployed officers from the Problem Animal Management Unit to go to the affected areas and they are carrying out ground and aerial patrols with the view of controlling the problems."

Neighbouring farms invaded

Maina said the most-affected sanctuaries were Tsavo National Park, made up of Tsavo East and West, in southeastern Kenya and the highly popular Maasai Mara National Reserve in the southwest, where hundreds of elephants were reported to have invaded neighbouring farms in search of food and water.

Officials said elephants had killed at least two people in the past two weeks around Tsavo, which was home to the largest number of the animals, and interrupted the funeral for one of the victims, prompting angry demonstrations from villagers.

The reports said: "The priest had to cut short his speech after the elephants emerged and started charging at the mourners.

"The besieged villagers resorted to shouting and blowing whistles forcing the beasts to retreat to the bush."

The reports also said that the crowd had turned nasty in demanding the government action against the elephants, barricading a road and stoning cars for more than three hours.

Solar fencing to check elephant menace
[South India] Newindpress
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20060111112832&Page=T&Title=Southern+News+-+Tamil+Nadu&Topic=0

The Tamil Nadu Forest Department is likely to install a solar fencing at an estimated cost of Rs 25 lakh in the forest region of Anchetty in Krishnagiri district in a bid to prevent the elephants from entering the human habitats.

According to a recent survey, over 575 elephants have been identified in the Krishnagiri Forest Division. The elephant movement is more in the dense forest region of Anchetty.

As the forest region has shrunk with encroachments for agriculture and other purposes in the past 10 years, the pachyderms have started invading the human habitats frequently. They have damaged crops worth lakhs in the past and killed several farmers while straying into hamlets located in the foothills.

The problem turned serious when an elephant trampled a farmer to death in Dasirapalli village last week. To draw the attention of the government against the elephant menace, the farmers staged an agitation in this regard in front of the Forest Department Office in Thally. They also kept the dead body of the farmer during the protest.

Two days ago, the irate farmers picked up Forest Ranger Munian and reportedly kept him in their custody in Neralahatti village for almost a day. However, the Forest Ranger was released after police intervened.

This incident had forced the Hosur Forest Division to take immediate steps against this menace.

Talking to reporters in this regard, District Forest Officer S Paulraj said the Anchetty Forest region was located on the border of Tamil Nadu. The elephants in the Western Ghat in Karnataka used to stray into Anchetty forests. However, the Forest Department had created a trench on the border to prevent elephants from entering the human habitats from Karnataka.

He also said that the government had sanctioned Rs 25 lakh to install a solar fencing in the Anchetty forests in a bid to prevent elephants from entering the agricultural lands. He said the Hosur Forest Division would take all-round efforts to implement the project soon.

CROPS DAMAGED: Meanwhile, in Dharmapuri, a herd of elephants damaged crops at various hill villages in Pennagaram taluk on Tuesday.

As the elephants entered Papparapatti, villagers chased them by bursting crackers and lighting torch. As a result, the pachyderms panicked and in the confusion to get out of the place damaged the crops in the Papparapatti hill villages.

Similarly, another herd of elephants damaged crops in Chinnapanallur, Madam, Pannappatti areas before they were chased by the villagers to the Hogenakkal forests.

According to the Forest Department, elephant watchers had been deployed to keep a check on the animals near the forest villages. The Forest officials along with people from the rural areas had been engaged to chase the elephants into the forests. The Revenue and Forest Departments staff were collecting the data of damage caused to the crops. However, no casualty was reported from the incident.

The Papparapatti, Pennagaram, Hogenakkal, Neruppur and Yeriyur police are also keeping a vigil.

Isotopes and GPS Reveal Secrets of Elephant Migration and Diet
January 03, 2006
Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00075A66-C7DB-13B9-87DB83414B7F0000

Elephant conservation is fraught with difficulty. Though the behemoths are endangered, the land set aside for them is insufficient. When they move beyond their sanctuaries in search of food they inevitably run into trouble, often from farmers trying to protect their crops. A new technique for observing where elephants are going and what they're eating could inform ways to manage them more effectively, and thereby reduce their conflicts with humans.

Geochemist Thure Cerling of the University of Utah and his colleagues analyzed isotopes of carbon and nitrogen found in the tail hair of seven Kenyan elephants that were fitted with GPS collars and tracked for nearly two years. The collars revealed the movements of the animals; the isotopes disclosed their diet. The researchers found that six of the elephants spent most of their time in the arid lowlands of the Samburu National Reserve, where they ate mostly trees and shrubs. During the rainy season, however, they dined on the newly available grasses. The seventh elephant, named Lewis, had a different tactic. He lingered in Samburu during the wet season, but then headed for Mount Kenya's Imenti Forest, located 25 miles away, during the dry season. While in the forest he repeatedly raided subsistence farms under cover of darkness, feasting on corn. "Diet is very important for bull elephants," says team member Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Kenya's Save the Elephants Foundation. "If they are to succeed in sexual contests for females, they need high-quality food to build up their strength, hence the reason for high-risk crop raiding."

Unfortunately for Lewis, Douglas-Hamilton notes, this risk did not pay off: the elephant was shot multiple times, probably because of the raiding, and died in Samburu a year after completion of the research. Perhaps as a result of this study of which he was a part, other elephants may be spared a similar fate. "Tracking stable isotopes in an elephant's diet--when combined with actual tracking of movements using high-tech remote sensing--provides a powerful new tool for conservationists," Douglas Hamilton asserts. "It allows us to understand possible elephant motivation and, from this, to see how management plans can be focused on understanding their basic needs for space." A report detailing these findings is being published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

BIG HOPES FOR ENDANGERED ASIAN ELEPHANTS
Jan. 27 2006
Press Release - ICUN
http://www.harolddoan.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8001

Gland, Switzerland (IUCN) � The situation facing the Asian elephant is critical. Just over 5 percent of the original Asian elephant habitat remains today, and its population has declined over the past half century to an estimated 30,000�50,000 animals in the wild. This is only 10-15% of the African elephant population.

Once a symbol of a unique and sacred relationship between nature and man, it is now threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (category �endangered�).

To address the main issues threatening the survival of the Asian elephant, the 13 Asian countries which still have wild populations came together for the first time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 24�26 January 2006. The meeting, convened by the Government of Malaysia, was facilitated by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and in particular its Species Survival Commission (SSC).

Regional consensus on ways to secure the species� future was the main aim of the meeting and the need for transboundary cooperation was highlighted throughout the discussions.

�Many range states face similar problems. Therefore, the meeting focused on lessons learned and the sharing of expertise to help improve the Asian elephant�s fortunes. We hope that this meeting will only be the first step in a continuous fruitful process,� says Dr Holly Dublin, Chair of SSC.

Country populations vary from perhaps less than 100 in Vietnam to over 20,000 in India, but many population estimates are little more than guesses.

�The need to develop a reliable information gathering and management system was emphasised at the meeting,� said Simon Hedges, co-chair of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

One of the main contributing factors to the elephant�s decline is the increase in human�elephant conflicts, which result in the death of several hundred animals and people every year, as well as damage to properties. This rise has become inevitable as Asian elephants have less and less natural habitat in which to feed and roam. Just 500,000 sq km of the former Asian elephant habitat remains today �out of an original 9 million sq km.

South and Southeast Asia have the highest human population density in the world, and it is still increasing by 1-3 percent every year. This results in accelerated conversion of forest and other elephant habitat into agriculture and settlements, disrupting traditional elephant paths and reducing their food supply.

�The Asian elephant requires much larger areas of natural range than most other terrestrial mammals in Asia. In order to coexist with humans we need to move from short term mitigation measures to long term land use planning strategies taking into account the species� biological needs; otherwise we shall keep seeing the elimination of elephant populations in large parts of its range,� says Ajay Desai, the other Co-chair of the SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

Human-elephant conflict is now the major cause of individual elephant deaths, through indiscriminate poisoning, shooting and trapping. It is therefore critical to find ways to minimize this conflict and integrate these strategies into land use to ensure the long term survival of the species.

In addition, the recognition of elephants as an economic asset instead of an agricultural pest, and realistic compensation payments to farmers for elephant damage would encourage local people to be more tolerant of them living in their neighbourhood.

Other threats include selective poaching of tusked males for ivory, which results in skewed male-female ratios in many populations. While ivory is the main target for poachers, meat, hide, tail hair, bones and teeth are also traded, making elephants a particularly attractive target. Illegal killing has significantly reduced populations over wide areas.

�The conservation of the Asian elephant will require a pragmatic synergy of scientific knowledge, cultural pride, and political will. We hope we have managed to bring all these factors together at this meeting,� says Dr Holly Dublin.

Group Criticizes Vallego Six Flags for Elephant Abuse
January 10, 2006
Bay City News Wire
http://www.cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2006/01/10/n/HeadlineNews/BAD-ELEPHANT-ZOOS/resources_bcn_html

It stinks to be an elephant at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo but not for the usual reasons, according to Mill Valley-based In Defense of Animals, a non-profit animal advocacy group.

The group included the local amusement park and zoo in its second annual "Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants" list, according to In Defense of Animals spokeswoman Suzanne Roy. The zoo was also included in the inaugural list last year.

"We created the list to highlight the list of problems that elephants (face at zoos)," said Roy. "I chose the different zoos to highlight the different problems. Marine World has had a pretty bad record (of elephant treatment).''

The group claims that Marine World uses bullhooks, which are similar to fireplace pokers, to prod the elephants in sensitive places and control them.

The group also says elephants at the park are kept in chains for prolonged periods of time and six have died in the last decade.

"It is an entertainment complex," said Roy. "It is highly inappropriate to have these highly sensitive animals.''

When in 2004 one of the park's elephants gored a trainer, In Defense of Animals and other animal advocacy groups criticized the park for mistreatment, which they say was the cause of the attack.

But park spokesman Paul Garcia classified the list as anti-zoo "propaganda.''

"When you really look at it (In Defense of Animals) are anti-zoo," he said. "Our role is to bring you in touch with animals.''

Garcia said the park is not currently taking an "active role in (an elephant) breeding program" - another common criticism aimed at many zoos and amusement parks.

Zoo tips scales in favor of elephant
By Bill Zlatos
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/pittsburgh/s_411962.html

The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium plans to convert a controversial 724-acre ranch in Somerset County that was used for hunting fenced-in animals, including bison and wild boars, into a center for breeding African elephants and other rare animals.

Zoo officials announced Monday an agreement to buy and develop the Glen Savage Ranch in Fairhope into an International Conservation Center.

"This center will allow us to provide housing and breeding for protected and endangered species, with a first emphasis on the African elephant, said Barbara Baker, zoo president and CEO. "It's an opportunity for the zoo to be recognized as a world leader and further our goal to be a Top 10 zoo."

Zoo officials also plan to use the center to teach handlers around the world about elephants and boost local tourism through children's camps and safari rides.

The zoo expects to close on the property, about 12 miles south of Interstate 76, in February or March. It will pay for the deal with $2.2 million from The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit environmental group.

The property is owned by Jerry and Iris Leydig, of Fairhope. They could not be reached for comment.

The zoo is trying to raise money to build a center for housing, exercising and breeding the animals. Its cost is undetermined, but Baker expects that it will take two years to raise the money and build it.

"Most of the Top 10 zoos now have off-site breeding centers," Baker said, citing zoos in Washington, D.C., St. Louis, Cincinnati and Columbus. "It's a natural evolution of our zoo as a zoo."

The zoo hopes to first introduce as many as 20 elephants on the site, then 20 to 30 cheetahs, as well as Siberian tigers, black rhinoceroses, snow leopards, African wild dogs and Grevy's zebras.

Baker said the zoo in Highland Park will continue to exhibit African elephants, and the breeding center will allow it to add new species, such as African wild dogs and Grevy's zebras.

Under the sales agreement, Glen Savage Ranch ended the hunting of animals on Dec. 31. The remaining six bison and 20 deer will be allowed to live on the property, Baker said.

Animal rights groups welcomed the zoo's purchase of the site.

"We're happy to see an end to the unfair and cruel practice of canned hunting of animals," said Heidi Prescott, senior vice president of campaigns for The Humane Society of the United States, a group based in Washington, D.C.

Before the sales agreement, the ranch offered hunting of white-tailed deer, elk, red stags, wild boars, bison and black bear. The prices ranged from $495 for a boar to more than $9,995 for a trophy buck.

The land contains a one-story log cabin, a two-story frame house, an office and restaurant and other buildings. The rolling property has a 10-acre pond and 20 paddocks of five to 20 acres.

"It seems the Pittsburgh Zoo really hit a home run on this one, because the facility has so much infrastructure already in place," said Jane Ballentine, spokeswoman for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, a Silver Spring, Md.-based group that represents 210 zoos and aquariums.

She said this would be the only facility affiliated with her group that specializes in breeding elephants.

The land is surrounded by a 10-foot-high electrified fence, but Baker said the zoo would have to improve the fence for elephants.

The venture will involve Pittsburgh's well-known elephant manager, Willie Theison. He also teaches elephant handlers at the Wuppertal Zoo in Germany.

He said the new facility would enable him to teach as many as 12 handlers at a time. "It'll offer an opportunity to develop what we do on a grander scale than me just visiting a zoo," he said.

Bill Langbauer, director of science and conservation, said the center would allow the zoo to work with local and African universities to launch degrees in managing wildlife and captive animals.

When the zoo starts day- and weeklong camps for children and rides through the park, Baker predicts that local tourism will prosper. The land is about eight miles from the Flight 93 site and 10 miles from the site of the 2002 Quecreek Mine rescue.

"That's the neat thing about the property, because there are so many possibilities," she said.

Although a supporter of the project, another representative of The Humane Society criticized the proposed size of the elephant facility. It is expected to be 200 feet by 200 feet.

"That's pitifully small," said Richard Farinato, director of the society's Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Texas. "Any animal protection group would like to see them develop as much space as possible for elephants."

Lethal grid fence to keep out jumbos
January 26, 2006
Botswana Press Agency
http://www.gov.bw/cgi-bin/news.cgi?d=20060126&i=Lethal_grid_fence_to_keep_out_jumbos

Government will re-construct -- and electrify with lethal grid power -- a fence to keep elephants away the fields in the Bobirwa Sub-District, the Minister of Environment, Wildife and Tourism has said.

Kitso Mokaila said at a kgotla meeting in Mathathane that the government was worried by rogue elephants that currently number up to 150 000 even though it had been intended to keep their population at around 65 000.

Mokaila told Babirwa that government intended to rid the Bobirwa and Mmadinare areas of elephants.

He said the government had tried to donate elephants to Angola and Mozambique but the two countries failed collect them because they were expensive to transport.

He said game scouts have been intructed to shoot any problem animal that posed a threat to peoples life and property.

Mokaila explained that the 40km fence that runs form Redshild to Terrafou was not well constructed from the start but the one under construction was being done properly with the right material and expertise and hoped that it would reduce their problems.

Once the fence was complete, he said, it would be under constant patrol by the Problem Animal Control division of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks.

Responding to requests by the residents to be allowed to have some form of royalties or concessions from the tourism industry in their area, the minister explained that it was acceptable and what they only had to do was to form a trust and then inform the government thereafter.

For his part, Bobirwa MP Shaw Kgati said the elephants were so destructive that some farmers had to be put on the destitute programme because they had no means of a livelihood.

He said tourism had great potential in the region and should be developed to the same level as other regions like Kgalagadi and the North West districts.

Kgati appealed for the establishment of a training school for game rangers in the region instead of travelling long distances to places such as Maun for training.

In line with the decentralisation policy, he said, it would be convenient for the tourism office to be brought nearer to Mathathane instead of Selebi-Phikwe.

Asian elephant scrabble for habitats with human in Yunnan
January 4, 2006
China View
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-01/04/content_4006279.htm

A whole patch of cornfield was scrabbled and lifeless, without even one seed left.

This is the scene in a picture hanging on the local nature reserve office in Xishuangbanna, a place with China's best-preserved tropical rainforest and richest bio-diversity in the southwest part of the country.

Nearly 200 Asian elephants live in Xishuangbanna, less than one percent of the world's total, according to a brochure in the office.

"The most difficult problems we are facing now in protecting wild Asian elephants are, the human-elephant conflicts and poaching," Liu Linyun, the head of scientific research center under the nature reserve management authority in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province.

"Villagers have contracted enmity with elephants because the animals are hurting their crops badly," said Liu, "Some families have reaped almost nothing if their fields were scrambled by wild elephants."

Poaching, Liu said, is almost unavoidable because elephants andhunters also stroll across China's neighboring Myanmar and the Laos, making the efforts from one country fruitless.

"I have never seen a wild elephant here, because my parents do not allow," said Sang Fen, a Hani ethnic minority girl living in Xishuangbanna.

"I heard elephants could trample people to death, and two yearsago, a fellow villager was hit dead by an angry elephant," the 24 year-old girl said, a dreadful expression in her face.

"We used to shoot them when they eat our crops, but the government stopped that later," she said.

"Due to the rapid growth of farming activities, lots of the used-to-be wildlife habitats are developed to grow crops, putting human and elephant in a close contact," said Hua Ning, project manager with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

The chances that people are killed, crops are raided by compelled elephants, or elephants are hurt by angered people have increased sharply in recent years, said Hua, "Killings of elephants have continued to happen."

In 2003, the Xishuangbanna national nature reserve management authority collaborated with the IFAW to set up an Asian elephant protection office in the area, aiming to restore the fragmented wild elephant habitat and to find solutions to the increasing human-wildlife conflicts.

"We try to guide local people to grow crops that elephants are not interested in, as well as cultivating people's protection sense to wild animals," said Hua.

"The IFAW introduced the practice in Simao, a nearby prefecturein Yunnan Province in 2000," said Hua, "The project was a success because it helped local communities to find a way living in peace with wildlife. We helped build the capacity to increase tolerance towards wild elephants in local communities, and these successful experiences are now being applied to the Xishuangbanna project."

According to Hua, when elephants roam around in the forest withtheir giant body, they help to spread the seeds and enrich plantations in different places. They also eat higher branches, allowing sunlight to reach lower parts of the plantations in the forest.

It is a known fact that elephants, the biggest terrestrial mammal species on earth, are threatened by rampant poaching for ivory. The population of African elephant dropped from more than 1.3 million to as low as today's 500,000 in two decades, and Asian elephants are fewer than 50,000 in the wild.

Asian elephants are protected by China's Wildlife Protection Law and Appendix I species in the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES), which prohibits any international trade in elephant products.

"What we fear most is short-sightedness," Hua Ning said, "The economic lure right ahead of human usually results in the harm to the biological environment that we ourselves heavily rely on."

Uganda to Crack Down On Ivory Peddling
New Vision (Kampala) News
December 28, 2005
http://allafrica.com/stories/200601040619.html
By Gerald Tenywa

UGANDA is to intensify efforts of cracking down on illegal trade in elephant ivory following the acquisition of ivory detectors early this month.

A statement said this was part of the capacity building offered at a time when East and Central Africa are considered a main route for illegal ivory exports. The Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF), which is also referred to as the "Interpol for wildlife," early this year worked with the UN Environment Programme to purchase 15 ivory detectors that were last week distributed to the LATF member states: Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Congo Brazzaville.

The detectors, which cost $5,000 each, can also identify minerals, drugs, explosives, ammunition and humans.

Two senior law enforcement officials under the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) have the capacity to detect ivory in any form after rigorous training in Nairobi, which attracted wildlife officials from five countries.

UWA's Lillian Nsubuga sent the statement, which also said the two officials had been trained in various ivory detection skills like tracing hidden ivory in houses, trees or containers.

"This machine can easily detect ivory in concealed places, containers under water and under the ground," said Capt. Henry Isoke, UWA's head of law enforcement.

They can detect substances up to a distance of 500 metres and a depth of 15 metres. A UK-based company, Global Technical Ltd, first manufactured them a decade ago, according to the statement.

In Uganda, the detectors will be used at Entebbe Airport as well as various check points like the central internal container depots and the borders, the statement stated.

Nsubuga said the detector could also be used by the customs department in the Uganda Revenue Authority, the Police, the army and the National Drug Authority.

Elephants Respect Old, Big Females
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
January 23, 2006
Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060123/elephantmama_ani.html

In a female elephant gang, few animals bother the oldest and biggest of the group because they know she will not put up with any nonsense, according to a new study that found age and size determine wild female elephant hierarchies.

The study, published in the current issue of Animal Behavior, presents some of the first data on dominance and the social lives of adult, wild female elephants, Loxodonta africana. Females of this species hang out together in family groups for most of their lives.

Humans may shrink as they get older, but not elephants.

"Female elephants never stop growing, so age and size are almost always linked," said Elizabeth Archie, who led the research.

"Female elephants have two formidable weapons: their tusks and their huge body size. Tusks, horns and teeth are common in many species, but when these weapons are driven by a powerful animal that weighs thousands of pounds, the results can be fatal," she said.

Archie, a Smithsonian Doctoral Fellow in the Genetics Department at the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., explained to Discovery News that although female elephants can seriously hurt, or even kill, each other, they hardly ever do so because younger, smaller elephants quickly learn to defer to the group's dominant female.

"A clear dominance hierarchy probably mitigates this risk of injury," she said. "For instance, if two female elephants both want to eat bark from the same tree branch, the subordinate elephant will simply back off because she knows that, if she were to challenge the other elephant, she would lose."

Archie and her colleagues collected behavioral data on free-ranging female elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, and in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania, during two separate studies over the course of 12 years.

While elephants would seem to have equal access to resources, which in this case are plentiful and widely distributed, the researchers believe hierarchies evolved because the animals squabble over desirable water holes, mineral resources, rubbing posts and high-quality foods, such as tasty tree bark, palm flowers and balanites seeds, all of which the females love.

Although the observed elephants occasionally would charge, chase, poke and push each other, generally they reserved their greatest aggression toward unrelated intruders. That is when the female group would band together to defend each other.

The most spats overall, however, occurred between mothers and daughters.

"Elephant mothers and daughters stay together in the same group and are often within a few meters of each other," said Archie. "We think this intense physical proximity is the main reason why mother and daughters fight so often. As one of my colleagues says, 'You'd fight too if you still had to live with your mother.'"

The comparison with humans does not end there.

She said that, like humans, "elephants form close social relationships that endure throughout their lives."

These relationships can also extend beyond the family group to include hundreds of other individuals. Many humans associate age with wisdom, as do elephants, which seem to respect that "the elderly appear to be repositories of ecological and social knowledge."

Jeanne Altmann, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, told Discovery News that the findings were "clear and well-supported by the data and are impressive for their consistency between two of the longest-term studies of individually identified elephant populations."

Archie and her team plan to investigate whether or not the close and enduring female relationships allow the females to produce more offspring that have better chances for survival.

Altmann said that such research, along with the current information, "not only sheds light on elephant societies, but on the evolution of female sociality more broadly" in other species, and perhaps even in humans.

Elephants' hair tells story -- GPS tracking technology could help endangered species
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/01/03/elephant.hair.ap

Lewis had gourmet taste: Whenever the dry season browned grass in his Kenyan sanctuary, he'd abandon the other elephants and race 25 miles to the mountains -- to raid farmers' corn fields under cover of night.

A foot-long hair plucked from his tail, and GPS technology, tell the story.

It's a new way to track elephants' dietary needs and roaming habits that scientists hope ultimately could help the endangered species survive, information key to minimizing conflicts between pachyderms and people.

Indeed, Lewis' roaming cost him his life. Shortly after the research ended, he was found shot to death, presumably by a farmer tired of the crop-raiding.

"Part of the problem with the elephant is, we need to know how much space they really need," explained geochemist Thure Cerling of the University of Utah, who led the research reported Monday in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Why do they need a particular space? Could we manage the parks to make them work better for them?"

Shrinking living space, as more people move into lands they once freely foraged, and poaching for ivory threaten elephant populations worldwide. But populations vary widely by country. South Africa, Namibia and Botwswana, for example, have booming herds. In contrast, Kenya and certain other African countries are struggling to increase decimated elephant populations.

Because elephants are so large and eat so much, a key question for conservationists is how to designate officially protected areas suitable enough to their needs that they won't roam toward encroaching human settlements.

"Elephants need to find food and water, but also to avoid danger, seek safety and to make social contact with other elephants," explained Iain Douglas-Hamilton of the Save the Elephants Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya. "Understanding elephant motivation defines their needs, and understanding these can help secure a future for the species."

Enter the hair study.

Hair is "like a tape recorder," Cerling said, harboring for long periods traces of dietary chemicals.

He gathered hair from the tails of 35 elephants in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve to analyze for long-lasting forms, called "stable isotopes," of carbon and nitrogen that would appear when an elephant ate mostly grass, trees or some other plant. He matched that testing to Save the Elephants' tracking, using Global Positioning System technology, of elephant movements.

Among the first seven elephants tested, 40-year-old Lewis was the wild guy. During the rainy season, he stayed in Samburu with his fellow pachyderms and ate the plentiful grass.

When the dry season hit and the grass died, the other pachyderms started munching bushes and trees. But Lewis bolted for Mount Kenya's thick Imenti Forest -- he could make the 25-mile trek in just 15 hours, an elephant phenomenon called streaking. There, he'd munch bushes or trees by day and raid for corn by night.

Tracking elephant movements suggests the intelligent mammals do know where their protected habitats end, but some still risk human contact to find higher quality food, said Douglas-Hamilton, whose earlier research helped lead to the 1989 international ivory ban.

Bulls in particular are prone to such forays, because the better diet can help their quest for a mate.

More hair sampling, now under way, should help scientists determine how much of certain plants elephants need in their diet, and exactly when they start foraging for them, he said.

That data should help conservationists' not only better plan elephant sanctuaries, but help local communities find ways to minimize crop damage when bulls like Lewis decide to roam.

Elephants too believe in kinship
October 26, 2005
Asian News International
http://www.hindustantimes.com/onlineCDA/PFVersion.jsp?article=http://10.81.141.122/news/181_1530172,00040003.htm

Elephants also pay homage to the bones of dead relatives in their home ranges, according to a new study.

Humans apart, only a few animals show any interest in their own dead. Chimpanzees show prolonged and complex behaviours towards a dead social partner - but abandon them once the carcass starts decomposing. But lions, for example, might sniff or lick a dead member of its own species before proceeding to devour the body.

African elephants have been observed to become highly agitated when they come across the bodies of their own, and they have been seen to pay great attention to the skull and ivory of long-dead elephants. However, this interest had not been tested experimentally.

Now research from a team in the UK and Kenya has demonstrated that African elephants pay a higher level of interest to elephant skulls compared with those of other animals and ivory compared to wood.

However, the team could not corroborate stories that elephants specifically visit the bones of dead relatives. The elephant families in their study were unable to pick out the skull of their dead matriarch from other families' dead matriarchs.

"But their interest in the ivory and skulls of their own species means that they would be highly likely to visit the bones of relatives who die within their home range," writes the team, lead by Karen McComb at the University of Sussex, UK.

"Elephants are highly intelligent and highly tactile animals," says David Field, head of animal care for London and Whipsnade Zoos in the UK. "The fact they are able to distinguish between their own skulls and those of other species is not surprising."

"Elephants themselves are a matriarchal society filled with aunties and family members who have close bonds within a group," he adds. A death in the family might be a significant social event. "It could have an impact on social bonding and structure within the group," he told New Scientist.

The notion of elephant graveyards - where old elephants wander off to die - has been exposed as myth by previous studies, the researchers note. Nonetheless, they believe their experiments "cast light" on why elephants are often seen interacting with the skulls and ivory of dead companions.

But there is no way to tell whether the elephants are mourning their dead although they get very excited when approaching carcasses, with secretions streaming from their temples

Cites Must Allow Culling of Elephants
January 21, 2006
(Harare)The Herald
http://allafrica.com/stories/200601230160.html

Stray elephants have always been a problem in rural areas and towns bordering national parks such as Binga, Beitbridge, Chiredzi, Gokwe, Guruve, Kariba, Muzarabani, Sanyati, Tsholotsho and Victoria Falls.

We reported on Thursday that villagers at Rocklands Resettlement Scheme in Sanyati are spending sleepless nights battling to keep marauding herds of elephants from destroying their crops.

The elephants have destroyed vast tracts of maize fields, cotton and groundnuts, denting farmers' hopes of a bumper harvest this year. Even schoolchildren are now refusing to walk to school out of fear of being trampled. Indeed, many lives are lost each year as the gigantic mammals trample people.

The jumbos have caused tremendous damage to the environment and crops in these areas as they compete for space, food and water with people.

Villagers in these areas do not harvest anything even when the country experiences a good rainy season, like this year, as the marauding elephants destroy their crops.

In fact, there is a serious human-animal conflict in these areas.

Other than banging drums or tins to scare the animals away, there is nothing the poor villagers can do about the elephant menace.

But one way of containing the situation would be for the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority to increase the number of wardens in those areas who would be able to control the jumbos.

The authority could open up more camps in these areas and increase its patrols, especially during the rainy season when there are crops in the fields. Surely there is no reason why year in and year out, villagers in these areas ask for food handouts from the Government because their crops would have been destroyed by elephants.

The ultimate solution would be to cull the elephants. Zimbabwe has a carrying capacity of between 45 000 and 50 000 elephants in its parks, but the jumbo population has ballooned to more than 100 000, the second highest in the region after Botswana, which has about 160 000.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which in 1989 listed elephants on the most endangered species list, should be sensitive to the plight of the people who are spending sleepless nights either guarding their fields or fighting battles with elephants.

They should allow Zimbabwe, together with Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, to cull their elephant populations to manageable levels, and then sell the ivory under strictly supervised programmes.

In 2002, Cites allowed these countries to collectively sell 60 tonnes of ivory in a one-off sale and this could be done again as long as all parties involved put their heads together.

The money raised would then be ploughed back towards the sustainable management of the elephants as well as the development of those communities.

It is unfair and smacks of double standards that those countries in the West which depleted their animals and destroyed their natural resources are the ones telling us how to manage our animals, even when they destroy homes and people's livelihoods.

Govt in Bid to Reduce Human-Wildlife Conflict
By Absalom Shigwedha
January 5, 2006
The Namibian News
http://allafrica.com/stories/200601050076.html

THE Ministry of Environment and Tourism is developing a policy to deal with Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC), which has become a serious concern for communal and commercial farmers alike.

The Ministry has found that the lack of such a policy, good infrastructure systems and Government resources were factors hindering progress in curtailing conflicts between people and wildlife.

In May last year, the Ministry held a national workshop on HWC management, where the policy was discussed.

Four critical areas that will be covered in the policy are the devolution of HWC conflict management authorities, insurance schemes, alternative mitigation measures and a standardised monitoring and reporting system.

Environment and Tourism Permanent Secretary Dr Malan Lindeque said HWC was probably the most difficult issue that conservation agencies such as his Ministry had to face.

Local communities, he said, need to be empowered to deal with this problem themselves.

Human-Wildlife Conflict refers to a range of conflicts between wild animals and people - from the destruction of homes, crops and water installations by large animals such as elephants, to predators killing people and livestock.

In November last year, the Doro !Nawas conservancy in the former Damaraland called on the Government to consider compensating people for losses caused by wild animals.

The chairperson of the conservancy, Leonard Hoaeb, said elephants in the area were destroying people's water points and other property.

Due to the shortage of grazing and water, elephants are now competing with humans for survival.

On 17 November last year, 60-year-old Morison Mashwahu Simpaya was killed by a elephant while he was looking for his cattle at Muyako village.

The animal was shot dead by Environment and Tourism officials after the incident.

In the same month, Vaesapi Musutua (31) was attacked and killed by an elephant at Palmfontein near Erwee in Kunene Region.

A man escaped unhurt.

According to the Nature Conservation Ordinance of 1975, people have the right to defend themselves against aggressive wild animals threatening their lives, the Chief Warden Control for the Caprivi and Kavango regions, Colgar Sikopo, said last November.

An Elephant Tail
New Tracking Method May Help Endangered Packyderms
Embargoed by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for release at 3 p.m. MST Monday Jan. 2, 2006
University of Utah News Release
http://www.utah.edu/unews/releases/06/jan/elephanttrack.html

African elephants in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve. Note the adult elephant's tail hair. University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling analyzed chemical isotopes in elephant tail hair to help track the diet and movements of the giant creatures, which have international status as endangered animals.

By analyzing chemicals in tail hair from elephants that wore radio collars, researchers tracked the diet and movements of elephants in Kenya � a method aimed at reducing human-elephant conflicts and determining where to establish sanctuaries to protect the endangered creatures.

�This is a new method to understand elephant behavior and help ensure their survival,� says geochemist Thure Cerling, the study�s principal author and a distinguished professor of geology-geophysics and biology at the University of Utah.

The findings are being published in the Jan. 3-6, 2006, online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and in the journal�s Jan. 10 print issue.

The study involved analysis of �stable isotopes� of carbon and nitrogen in African elephants� tail hair to determine what and where they ate as they also were tracked with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars. Stable isotopes previously have been used to track sources of counterfeit currency, illicit drugs, explosives and bacteria like anthrax.

Among the elephants tracked in the study was a bull named Lewis, who ate lowland grasses in a sanctuary during rainy times, then trekked 25 miles to the mountains, where he ate shrubs and trees by day and raided farmers� corn fields at night. He was shot after the study was completed, possibly by a farmer.

�One big question is how can we secure a future for elephants when we know that the areas set aside for their protection are too small,� says study co-author and zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder, president and chief executive officer of the Save the Elephants Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya.

Elephants are endangered internationally, but �their actual status varies from local abundance in parts of southern Africa and in some protected areas elsewhere, to critically endangered in vast regions of central Africa,� says Douglas-Hamilton, who helped bring about a global ivory trade ban after chronicling the massacre of elephants in the 1980s.

�Since they need space to roam and since the human population is increasing within elephant range, there is inevitable conflict,� he adds. �Tracking an elephant's diet through stable isotopes defines essential elephant dietary needs and can help inform land use planning. � The fine information from the isotopes and actual elephant tracking can help us define the critical minimum space needed by elephants and other animals.�

Cerling and Douglas-Hamilton conducted the study with George Wittemyer, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley; biologist Fritz Vollrath and doctoral student Henrik Rasmussen at Oxford University; and two University of Utah undergraduate lab workers: Claire Cerling, who is Cerling�s daughter, and Todd Robinson.

How Isotopes in Elephant Tail Hair Reveal Climate and Diet

Isotopes are different weights or forms an element. Stable isotopes are those that do not decay radioactively. Because environmental factors affects the proportions of various isotopes of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen in animals, plants, soil and air, stable isotope analysis has been used as a way to learn how ecosystems work.

In recent years, University of Utah biologist James Ehleringer pioneered analysis of stable isotopes to study �the ecology of terrorism,� using the method to determine where drugs were grown or processed, where counterfeit currency was produced, where explosives were manufactured and even where bacteria similar to anthrax were cultured.

Cerling, meanwhile, has used the method to learn about prehistoric climates and environments. He has estimated how carbon dioxide levels in Earth�s atmosphere varied over time millions of years ago by analyzing the proportions of different carbon and oxygen isotopes in prehistoric soils and animal teeth.

In the new study, Cerling and colleagues analyzed hair in the tails of African elephants in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. The foot-long hairs were collected when the elephants were briefly immobilized with drug-laden dart guns so they could be fitted with GPS radio-tracking collars or new batteries for the collars.

Save the Elephants has placed 80 GPS collars in elephants in the past decade to identify elephant habitats and their travel corridors. Goals include preserving habitats, protecting corridors and minimizing conflicts with humans.

In the new study, Cerling first calculated the rate of tail hair growth for the seven elephants studied. Recent hair growth contains isotopic clues to the elephant�s recent diet and environmental conditions; isotopes in older hair farther down the tail represent progressively older diet and environmental conditions:

-- Ratios of rare nitrogen-15 to common nitrogen-14 in tail hair revealed information about diet and environment. Plants in dry areas like Samburu have high ratios, while plants in wetter areas � such as forests on Mount Kenya � have lower ratios.

-- Ratios of rare carbon-13 to common carbon-12 also reveal information about diet because plants fall into two groups with two methods of photosynthesis. Plants with so-called C3 photosynthesis include trees and shrubs, and have a relatively low carbon-13-to-carbon-12 ratio. Plants with C4 photosynthesis include warm season tropical grasses, corn, millet and crabgrass, and have a fairly high ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12.

So a section of elephant tail hair with a low carbon-13-to-carbon-12 ratio indicates the elephant was eating trees and shrubs at the time that section of hair grew, while a high ratio indicates they ate tropical grasses � or perhaps a crop like corn.

The Findings: You (Elephants) Are What You Eat

The scientists studied tail hair isotopes and-or GPS tracking records for seven elephants during 2000 through July 2002.

Isotopes in the tail hair of six elephants had high ratios of nitrogen-15 to nitrogen-14, indicating they spent their time in the arid lowlands of Samburu. Most of the time, they had low ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12, indicating they ate trees and shrubs. But during the rainy season � as indicated by satellite photos � they had higher ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12 because they ate grasses that flourished in the wet weather.

�When it gets green, they begin to eat grass,� Cerling says. �When it�s not, they eat trees and shrubs.�

The seventh elephant � the bull named Lewis � was different. Cerling had isotope data from Lewis� tail hair from 2000 through February 2002, when the hair was removed at the same time a GPS radio collar was placed on Lewis. The collar tracked Lewis from February to July 2002, when it failed. An assumption was made that Lewis�s behavior when GPS tracked him was similar to when he was �tracked� by his tail hair chemistry.

The collar showed that Lewis spent rainy seasons in lowland Samburu, but then trekked 25 miles cross country to the Imenti Forest, some 6,500 feet in elevation on Mount Kenya. While in the forest, he made nighttime raids into subsistence farms.

The collar showed Lewis made three trips between mountain forest and arid lowlands between February and July 2002, with each 25-mile trek taking only 15 hours.

Such behavior is called �streaking� because the elephants �are essentially going as fast as they can,� Cerling says. �They spend their time in one area, and suddenly make this dash across the country and spend a long time in another area. Fewer and fewer elephants do this because the distance between safe areas is getting greater and there are more fences, more guns and more people.�

Lewis� tail hairs showed he had higher nitrogen-15-to-nitrogen-14 ratios during times he was in the arid Samburu preserve, which produces the �dry� nitrogen isotope signature even during the rainy season. Lewis also had higher ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12, indicating he went to Samburu during rainy times to eat grass.

At other times, the nitrogen isotope ratio was lower in Lewis� tail hair, indicating he spent the dry season in the mountains, where he normally ate trees and shrubs. But elevated carbon isotope ratios from mid-June to mid-August 2001 showed Lewis was eating C4 plants too � probably maize during nighttime crop raids.

Cerling says it is �important to quantify how much of elephants� diet comes from crops. It�s going to help resolve elephant-human conflict by quantifying the crop damage done by elephants. � Areas open to elephants are getting smaller and smaller, so we need to know how important different foods are to their diets in different areas.�

Lewis� Deadly Final Trek

Douglas-Hamilton says that when elephants move, it is for �sustenance, security or sex.� Lewis� motivation was not security since he crossed dangerous human-occupied territory. But by �streaking� to the mountains during the dry season, Lewis was able to eat corn while the Samburu elephants browsed on trees and shrubs.

�Diet is very important for bull elephants,� says Douglas-Hamilton. �If they are to succeed in sexual contests for females, they need high-quality food to build up their strength, hence the reason for high-risk crop raiding.�

�It is a high-risk, high-gain strategy, and in our elephant's case it did not pay off. Shortly after the research was done, Lewis suffered multiple gunshots, very likely a result of crop raiding. He died in the Samburu reserve a year after the research was done.�

Douglas-Hamilton says the study shows that �tracking stable isotopes in an elephant's diet � when combined with actual tracking of movements using high-tech remote sensing � provides a powerful new tool for conservationists. It allows us to understand possible elephant motivation and, from this, to see how management plans can be focused on understanding their basic needs for space.�

SA scientists debate elephant culling
Sivuyile Mangxamba
January 20, 2006
Cooltech iafrica
http://cooltech.iafrica.com/science/829524.htm

The South African government on Wednesday held consultations with scientists on a plan to lift a 10-year ban on elephant culling, seeking to inject some cold hard science into an impassioned debate.

Environment and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk met with 10 top scientists who were to present evidence on the elephant conundrum facing the government.

"This is an enormously complex issue with a wide range of opinions that are passionately advocated by various stakeholder groups," spokesperson J.P. Louw of the environment and tourism ministry said after the meeting.

"The minister has undertaken to consider all opinions carefully before reaching a decision."

South Africa is considering lifting a 10-year ban on elephant culling to prevent the pachyderm population from spiralling out of control and to safeguard other species.

The problem is particularly acute in South Africa's largest and best-known reserve, the Kruger National Park, where the elephant population is increasing at a rate of seven percent a year, which means there will be some 20�000 elephants in 2012.

Elephant culling in Kruger started in 1967 and was halted in 1995 after an outcry from animal rights groups. There are currently some 12�500 in the park and between 14�000 and 15�000 countrywide.

But scientists participating in Wednesday's discussions said "there is no compelling evidence to suggest the need for immediate, large-scale reduction of elephant numbers in the Kruger National Park", according to a statement issued by the ministry.

However, there is a need for the management of elephants in other parts of the country, according to one of the scientists attending the meeting.

"We have also agreed that in other places there may be a need to manipulate ways they (elephants) use their space and interact with biodiversity," said Rudi van Aarde of the University of Pretoria.

South Africa's national parks service contends that the elephant population must be brought under control to protect vegetation and other wildlife, and also to safeguard communities bordering Kruger Park who have been harassed by the animals.

The environment and tourism ministry announced in September that it was considering lifting the ban but would first consult the public and other players before taking any action.

The move drew criticism from some animal rights and conservationists who argued that options other than the slaughter of elephants, one of the "Big Five" animals, should be considered.

Two groups said on Wednesday that they were disappointed with the makeup of the scientific panel that they charged were pro-culling.

"Our concern about this meeting is: will it be a discussion on how to cull or will they look at whether culling is necessary," spokesperson Michele Pickover of Xwe African Wildlife told AFP.

"The meeting is composed with the pro-culling lobby. There were a lot of international scientists who were meant to come to this meeting," said spokesperson David Bilchitz of the group Elephants Alive.

"We think the department is under a lot of pressure to make a decision. We call on the department to have another round where a full range of scientists can be represented," said Bilchitz.

The 10 scientists from South Africa and Zimbabwe were to debate evidence on whether there are too many elephants, whether they are causing damage to biodiversity, and look at which management options are the most appropriate.

Other consultations with scientists were expected to take place before a final policy was to be drafted, the ministry said.

Besides culling, other population control measures would include capture, translocation and contraception.

Elephant reserve to prevent extinction
August 12, 2005
Viet Nam News
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/service/printversion.vnn?article_id=741856

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Forestry Department is constructing three elephant reservations in an effort to protect the massive mammal from extinction.

From 1975-80, Vietnam had over 2,000 elephants; but surveys this year indicate that there are only around 160 elephants living along the border provinces with Laos and Cambodia.

And with Vietnam one of only 13 Asian nations where elephants habitat, the forestry department has planned that the Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) preservation area will cover 250,000ha and protect two elephant communities of 128 head in the central highland provinces of Dak Lak and Gia Lai.

The second preservation area will be set up in the central province of Nghe An with a total area of 200,000ha and 20 elephants.

The last ones will be located in natural forests of southern province of Dong Nai, where 10 elephants are living.

In addition, under the sponsorship of the Asian Elephant Preserve Fund, a 56,000ha preservation area is to be established in Que Lam Forest, in the central province of Quang Nam. The area is to be developed into a habitat for 28 elephants.

Furthermore, the ministry's 2004-20 Biological Diversification Preservation programme in central of Truong Son area has targeted the set up of special preservations in localities by 2007 in the event individual elephants are found.

(Source: Viet Nam News)

New study of the world's smallest elephant
Eureka Alert
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/cu-ns120805.php

The world's smallest elephant species, the newly described Bornean elephant, will be the focus of a Cardiff University study in Sabah, Malaysia for the next three years.

The Bornean elephant has recently been confirmed as a separate sub-species, dramatically increasing its importance for biodiversity. Bornean elephants are the world's most endangered member of the elephant family with an estimated 1,100 - 1,500 surviving in the wild.

The Cardiff School of Biosciences study led by Professor Michael Bruford and funded by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, will provide the Sabah Wildlife Department with a range of essential conservation and management information concerning the ecology, genetics, social structure, dispersal and conflicts with agriculture.

Dr Beno�t Goossens who will carry out the research, said the need for the project was identified by wildlife authorities in Sabah during a previous Darwin Initiative grant to study orangutans. He said: "There is clearly an urgent need to undertake sound conservation action. Our work will provide information that is currently lacking, including identification of priority areas for the species that should be kept under forest cover.

"The project will also include training for Malaysian MSc student, Ms Nurzhafarina Othman in population biology and conservation genetics; and training for governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as representatives from the private sector on wildlife monitoring techniques."

Project partners are the Sabah Wildlife Department, Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Project and the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation at Universiti Malaysia Sabah.

Plans complete to settle more elephants in national park
December 16, 2005
Nation Media
http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=63459

Two hundred and fifty elephants will be moved to Tsavo East National Park next year.

They are part of 400 jumbos to be moved from Shimba Game Reserve in what is billed as the most expensive animal transfer in the country's history, at a cost of more than Sh250 million.

Speaking to Kenya Wildlife Service staff at the park, Tourism and Wildlife permanent secretary Rebecca Nabutola said that, contrary to earlier fears that the animals would return to Kwale, they had adapted to their new environment.

"The 150 elephants so far moved are adapting well in Tsavo East. They are unlike the traditional mother who does not forget her previous home," the PS said.

Several challenges face KWS, she said, and listed them as poaching, bush meat trade and human-animal conflict.

Mrs Nabutola said there were plans to address the conflict. Electric fences and water points within the parks would be put up and more rangers deployed in conflict-prone areas, she said.

She thanked conservation groups like the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust for their contributions to conservation.

The elephant transfer has faced strong opposition from Taita Taveta District leaders who fear it could escalate human-wildlife conflict and degrade the fragile Tsavo environment.

Tsavo holds the single largest jumbo population in the country, estimated at more than 10,000.

The park has received global recognition and is nicknamed Theatre of the Wild. About 70,000 tourists visit the national park every year.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Renewed calls for culling in wildlife reserves raises alarm among conservation groups
December 15, 2005
IRIN
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/1d1f2edcafa0ffe92422ea5c5d9c032e.htm

Wildlife conservation groups in Southern Africa have united in rejecting calls by some governments for a return to culling as a way of controlling the region's growing elephant population.

The call comes amid fears that elephant populations were ballooning beyond the carrying capacity of national parks, leading to a scarcity of water and grazing.

The debate around elephant population control methods comes at time when drought is affecting Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique. South Africa also faces a growing elephant population in its Kruger National Park.

Zimbabwe blames the death of over 100 elephants on a serious shortage of water and grazing pasture. Environment and Tourism Minister Francis Nhema told IRIN that the Hwange National Park, which has a carrying capacity of 15,000 elephants, was supporting over 45,000 of them.

He said the large elephant population threatened the bio-diversity of the area because the animals consumed so much food and water that other animals were left with nothing to eat.

"This does not affect elephants alone - it also leads to widespread starvation and death for the other smaller species that cannot compete for resources. To say we have too many elephants would be a gross understatement: people living on the edge of the game reserves are in constant war with elephants that leave the parks in search of water and food," Nhema told IRIN.

He said the country had joined others in calling for the lifting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) on trading in elephant products to no avail since the last, limited, trade was allowed in 1999. Together with Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, Zimbabwe has lost successive bids to get the regional ban on trade in elephant products lifted.

"We support culling if it can save our parks and other smaller species. We keep on asking CITES to lift this ban so that we can be able to maintain the elephants at a manageable number, but no one is listening. Zimbabwe will support any elephant control measures that save the people and all the other animals, not just elephants," said Nhema.

According to the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Zimbabwe's elephant population grows at a rate of 4,200 per year and occupies a surface area of 78,550 square km.

Last month, government attempts to relocate some of the elephants to Namibia hit a snag when the Namibian Department of National Parks and Wildlife said it was facing the same problems with a 16,000 strong herd.

Namibian parks director Ben Beytell was quoted in local media as saying that the human-elephant conflict was worse in the northeastern Caprivi Strip, where villagers share wells with elephants. He attributed the crisis to the drying up of the Chobe River and Lake Liambezi due to drought.

In Botswana, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DPNW) authority blamed the growing elephant population for the destruction of perimeter fences around the Chobe National Park. Elephants straying out of the reserve in search of water and food have almost made human-elephant conflict an almost permanent feature in the north of the country.

South Africa's recent call for culling to control about 12,500 elephants in the Kruger National Park has been dismissed as "too cruel" by wildlife groups.

In a statement responding to the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Ministry's plans to resume culling, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said the country's reputation as a custodian of wildlife would suffer if the shooting started.

"Culling is a cruel, unethical and scientifically unsound practice," the IFAW statement read in part. The group has proposed the promotion of trans-frontier parks and migration corridors to allow greater movement of animals between countries. They also argued for the use of contraception to control population growth, a proposal rejected as expensive and prone to practical problems by South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

However, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has urged governments to consider culling only after exhausting all other alternatives. South Africa, which slaughtered 14,562 elephants between 1967 and 1994, stopped culling in 1995 in response to growing local and international pressure. Johnny Rodriguez, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce (ZCTF), said his organisation supported the creation of better-managed habitats rather than culling. He said the country could not afford more losses because it had already lost too much valuable wildlife to commercial and subsistence poachers since farm invasions began in February 2000 as part of the controversial fast-track land reform programme.

The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), a US-based conservation group running projects across Southern and East Africa, called culling a "last option".

"We know of no African government agency which would choose to consider culling where other options exist - culling is heart breaking, difficult, dangerous and extremely cruel. It can only be considered as a last option where the long-term wellbeing of wildlife is at risk," the AWF said in a statement.

WWF peeks into mysterious life of Borneo's pygmy elephants -- Satellite technology allows glimpse into remote jungle habitat
Eureka Alert
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-12/wwf-wpi121605.php

The same satellite system used by the U.S. military to track vehicle convoys in Iraq is helping World Wildlife Fund shed light on the little-known world of pygmy elephants in Borneo.

This week marks the six-month anniversary of the first pygmy elephant's being captured and outfitted with a collar that can send GPS locations to WWF daily via satellite. Now, for the first time, the public can track the movements of the elephants online through an interactive web map at www.worldwildlife.org/borneomap.

"No one has ever studied pygmy elephants before, so everything we're learning is groundbreaking data," said Dr. Christy Williams, who leads WWF's Asian elephant conservation efforts and worked with experts to use commercial satellite technology to track Asian elephants for the first time. "We will be following these elephants for several years by satellite to identify their home ranges and working with the Malaysian government to conserve the most critical areas."

Five elephants have been collared by WWF and the Sabah, Malaysia, Wildlife Department, with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Among the preliminary findings from the study:

The elephants' movements are noticeably affected by human activity. Elephants living in areas with the most human disturbance, such as logging and commercial agriculture, spend more time on the move than elephants in more remote areas. One of the collared elephants living near human activity, dubbed Bod Tai, covered a third more ground than did Nancy, who lives in more remote jungle.
Most of the elephants spend at least some of their time in palm oil plantations or near human habitation, which leads to conflict with people. In recent years, much of the elephants' habitat has been converted to tree plantations that produce palm oil, the leading export crop for Malaysia.
Each elephant belongs to a herd of 30-50 elephants but often splits off into smaller groups for days or weeks at a time. The home ranges of Nancy and Taliwas, who were collared in nearby forests, overlap, suggesting that the two elephants' groups may be related. Since elephants live in matriarchal societies, WWF collared only adult female elephants so that each elephant collared represents a whole herd's movements.
The elephants' diet consists of at least 162 species of plants (in 49 families), including several dipterocarp tree species. This was determined during field tracking that supplements the satellite tracking. It was proved that forest quality influences the diversity and distribution of elephant food in the forest, with encroachment into palm oil plantations being higher along the degraded forest-plantation areas.

The Sabah Wildlife Department described the study as very important and the results could be used to assist the department in preparing Sabah's elephant conservation plan.

The pygmy elephants were determined by WWF in 2003 to be a likely new subspecies of Asian elephant but very little is known about them, including how many there are. Pygmy elephants are smaller, chubbier and more gentle-natured than other Asian elephants. They are found only on the northeast tip of Borneo, mainly in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

"We are learning about more than just elephants with this project," said Raymond Alfred, project manager of the elephant tracking project in Sabah. "Elephants are a 'keystone species' and habitat engineers whose impact shapes the forest in important ways for the many other species with whom they share their habitat."

Notes to Editors:

Borneo is one of only two places -- the other being Indonesia's Sumatra island -- where endangered orangutans, elephants and rhinos co-exist. Other threatened wildlife in Borneo includes clouded leopards, sun bears and Bornean gibbons, the latter found nowhere else in the world. The island is also home to 10 primate species, more than 350 bird species, 150 reptiles and amphibians and 15,000 plants.
An ambitious initiative is under way to conserve the "Heart of Borneo." WWF is working to assist Borneo's three nations (Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei) to conserve the area known as the Heart of Borneo �V a total of 137,000 square miles of equatorial rain forest �V through a network of protected areas and sustainably managed forest.
Large areas of Borneo's forest are being rapidly cleared and replaced with tree plantations for rubber, palm oil and timber production. The illegal trade in exotic animals is also on the rise, as logging trails and cleared forest open access to more remote areas.

Nature News
Asian elephant gene study: surprise result
By UPI
December 20, 2005
Monsters and Critics
http://science.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1070143.php/Asian_elephant_gene_study_surprise_result

NEW YORK, NY, United States (UPI) -- Scientists at Columbia University have found that one of the few remaining groups of wild Asian elephants in India is genetically distinct.

The study`s findings might have far-reaching implications in conservation plans for the endangered elephants, as well as other species on the subcontinent.

Prithiviraj Fernando, a post-doctoral researcher at the Columbia`s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation and Don Melnick, executive director of CERC, together with colleagues from the Center for Ecological Science at the Indian Institute of Science, collected dung samples from nearly 300 wild Asian elephants and 30 captive elephants for which reliable capture information existed.

They then examined DNA from the samples and found that, of the distinct populations found in India, the group inhabiting the forests in the northeast of the country is actually composed of two genetically distinct populations separated by the Brahmaputra River.

Despite the low and declining numbers of Asian elephants, relatively little is known about their genetic diversity -- information that`s crucial to preserving the species.

The study appears in the current issue of the journal Animal Conservation.

Nature News
Woolly mammoth, African elephant diverged 6-7 million years ago
By DPA
Dec 20, 2005, 19:00 GMT
Monsters and Critics
http://science.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1070222.php/Woolly_mammoth_African_elephant_diverged_6-7_million_years_ago

Washington - After tackling the genetic structure of mice, cats and dogs, an international team of researchers has now sequenced a \'chunk\' of ancient DNA that belonged to an 27,000-year-old woolly mammoth, Science magazine reported Monday.

The study, released ahead of its publication on Thursday, shed new light on evolution.

It found a close identity of 98.55 per cent with the African elephant genome, and indicated the two species diverged about 5 to 6 million years ago, said the scientific team that was headed by Hendrik Poinar at Canada\'s McMaster University.

\'The interesting aspect from this is that this kind of divergence has been observed between human and chimpanzees for 5 to 6 million years ago,\' said Stephan Schuster, one of the study\'s authors from Penn State University in Pennsylvania, in a telephone interview.

\'That could mean that we could make an estimate of how diverse humanoids were over the same period of time,\' he said.

The article is to appear simultaneously in the British magazine Nature.

The team also analyzed the \'fellow travellers\' found with the sample, including bacteria, fungi, viruses and plants that lived at the same time as the mammoth in Siberia.

The study \'unleashes the field of paleogenomics,\' the researchers said.

More genome sequences of \'extinct species will answer long standing questions in molecular evolution,\' the scientists said, and will help to understand the stages during which some animals were selected for domestication.

While it\'s not the first time ancient DNA samples have been analyzed, the mammoth sample was much better preserved and yielded more genetic insight into the evolutionary process, the researchers said.

The team used a relatively new technique called pyrosequencing to study the small sample taken from the mammoth\'s jawbone work.

South Asian Experts Vow to Protect Endangered Elephants
Story by Nazimuddin Shaymol
December 21, 2005
Planet Ark
http://planetark.com.au/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34146/story.htm

Asian elephant numbers are falling because of deforestation, road-building and expansion of farmlands and plans to protect remaining populations are crucial, wildlife experts meeting in Bangladesh said.

The South Asian wildlife experts concluded a two-day meeting in southern Bangladesh on Tuesday with an agreement for joint collaboration to protect elephants, whose numbers across Asia are now 60,000, down from 150,000 two decades ago.

The meeting aimed to provide guidance for the conservation of endangered Asian elephants, Jafar Ahmed Chowdhury, secretary of Bangladesh Ministry of Forest and Environment, told reporters.

"The experts have agreed to evolve ways and means to protect and preserve elephants in their respective forests," he said.

Asian elephants, which are smaller than those in Africa, are found in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Combodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

But numbers are declining because Asia's growing economies and human populations are fuelling more demand for land and other resources, destroying the elephants' habitat and placing them at greater risk of direct confrontation with people.

For example, in Bangladesh up to 15 people and eight elephants are killed in human-elephant conflicts every year on average, forest officials say.

"The plight of elephants in Asia is bad, but it is worst in South Asia due to the huge population," said Tapan Kumar, a Bangladeshi wildlife conservationist who attended the two-day meeting.

"We should allow the endangered animals to live in their habitat undisturbed."

About 75 experts from five South Asian countries participated in the conference jointly sponsored by the Washington-based Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Nairobi-based organisation for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants.

The meeting adopted policies and programmes for the conservation of endangered elephants, mainly in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, Chowdhury said.

Migrating elephants were of particular concern.

About 100 elephants which migrated to Bangladesh's northern Sherpur forests from India's northeastern state of Meghalaya several years ago, failed to return because of development of infrastructure, such as roads by Indian border forces.

"These elephants are causing damage to crops, properties and human life in the region," a senior forest conservationist said.

The experts said a cross-border survey needed to be done to find ways of stopping migration of elephants and reduce human-elephant conflicts. Elephant herds naturally travel across wide areas to find food and water but some are forced to travel much large distances because their habitat have been destroyed.

Bangladesh has nearly 400 elephants, including 100 migratory pachyderms, and a similar number of captive elephants, forest officials said.

'Corridors for elephants only way to avoid conflict with humans'
New Kerala
http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=76476

New Delhi: Minister for Environment and Forests Thiru A. Raja today called for intensifying government and non-government efforts for securing safe corridors for elephants to avoid the pachyderm's conflict with humans and conserve the wildlife species.

Mr Raja was speaking after releasing a book titled 'Right of Passage: Elephant Corridors of India', a compilation of identified corridors in ten major elephant bearing states brought out by the Wildlife Trust of India.

He said that though efforts were being made to mitigate the problem of human-elephant conflict by erecting electric fences, stone walls and digging trenches around human habitations, the conflict continues due to fragmentation or degradation of habitat forcing the elephants to come in contact with the populated areas.

Mr Raja said the Government has released Rs. 13.33 crore for Project Elephant during the current financial year in addition to the financial support extended to elephant areas through other programmes.

While assuring all help from the Government, the Minister called for a combined effort by all those concerned, both government and non-governmental organisations to address the vital issue of elephant conservation by way of secured corridors.

The Minister complimented the Wildlife Trust of India for such an initiative to address a major issue of elephant conservation which he said could lead to the resolution of the human-elephant conflict.

Delicacies to placate rampaging jumbos
December 29, 2005
Chennai Online
http://www.chennaionline.com/colnews/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7B3B894265-7CA1-4CAE-A09B-E11F35579659%7D&CATEGORYNAME=Tamil+Nadu

In a bid to prevent wild elephants from damaging adjoining horticultural and agricultural fields near reserve forests in this district, the Tamil Nadu forest department is planning to raise elephant delicacies, including bamboo grass, in about 150 acres in the area.

It was also planed to dig a two-km long ditch along the elephant path leading to the farms to divert them and prevent them from destroying crops, an official of the department told reporters here today.

Attacks by wild elephants on both human beings and farms had been a recurring problem in this area and also Palani hills.

At a recent meeting convened by forest department, the farmers of Kombai led by their association president and erstwhile zamindar Appaji Rajkumar had complained that elephants had trampled two farm workers, including a woman, to death and now the farm workers were too scared to work.

However, forest official Ramanathan, in-charge of the Uthamapalayam range, blamed the farmers for the problem saying they had extended the cultivation to the forest area.

He said that in 1998 too the forest department had dug 4-km ditch to prevent the elephants from straying into the agriculture fields, but they had all been encroached.

According to a rough estimate, 1,417 hectares of forest land had been encroached, forest department sources said. (Agencies)

Uganda cracks down on illegal ivory trade
December 28, 2005
China View
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/28/content_3980856.htm

Uganda is to intensify efforts of cracking down on illegal trade in elephant ivory following the acquisition of ivory detectors early this month.

According to a Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) statement quoted by local press on Wednesday, the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF), which is also referred to as "Interpol for wildlife"early this year worked with the United Nations Environment Program to purchase 15 ivory detectors that were recently distributed to the LATF member states: Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville).

The acquisition of the detectors is part of the capacity building offered at a time when east and central African countries are considered a main route for illegal ivory exports.

According to the statement, two senior law enforcement officials under the UWA have been trained in Nairobi, Kenya to detect ivory in any form.

The statement also added that the two officials were trained in using the detectors to trace ivory in concealed places, containers under water and under the ground.

The machines, worth 5,000 US dollars each, can detect substances up to a distance of 500 meters and a depth of 15 meters.

According to UWA, the detectors will be used at Entebbe International Airport, as well as various check points like the central internal container depots and the country's border posts.

Uganda has lost hundreds of kg of elephant ivory in illegal trade. Early this month, a large consignment of elephant ivory alleged from Uganda was impounded in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.

Elephants are categorized as endangered species and trade in such species is prohibited.

The elephant population in Uganda has increased from 500 to about 4,000 in the last two decades, according to wildlife sources.

China seen as main market for illegal Africa ivory
December 21, 2005
Reuters AlertNet
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07681316.htm

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Africa's elephant herds are being targeted by poachers feeding a booming market for ivory in emerging colossus China, wildlife groups say.

"The major driving force for illegal ivory is demand in China which is facilitated by unregulated markets," said Jason Bell-Leask, the southern African director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

Analysts say China's briskly growing economy is creating an insatiable demand for ivory, mirroring its appetite for other African commodities such as oil, coal and copper.

But while most African resources are powering Chinese industry, ivory is sought as a luxury item by a new middle class that covets it as an ancient symbol of wealth and status.

The white substance is used in ornate carvings and jewellery. "The ivory market in China continues to be the most important influence (in the illegal trade)," said a report last year prepared by the Elephant Trade Information System.

The report looked at records from 75 countries or territories of 9,426 seizures of illicit elephant products from 1989 -- when a global ban was imposed on trade in ivory to stem a slaughter of African elephants -- and 2004.

"The data show that the volume of ivory seized declined from 1989 to 1994, then gradually increased from 1995 onwards, though never to levels prior to 1992," it said.

"If Chinese demand is removed, the trend line is essentially flat from 1994 onwards, indicating that this single market alone accounts for the increase in illegal trade in ivory in recent years," it concluded.

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

Researchers say anecdotal evidence and new data suggests the report only scratched the surface of China's ivory market.

"Since the report was published I visited China and discovered that there were far more seizures than had been reported," said Tom Milliken, one of the report's authors.

"The over 9,000 seizures that we looked at in the report included only 200 from China, though China was the final destination for many of the seizures from other countries. But Shanghai Customs alone reported from January 2000 to December 31, 2004, that they had made 486 ivory seizures," he told Reuters.

Increasing seizures in illegal ivory almost certainly mean that elephants are being killed for their tusks but there is no hard data on the poaching of the pachyderms.

"There is no reliable estimate on illegal elephant killings but there are lots of disturbing reports out of places like the Democratic Republic of Congo which suggest it is on the increase to meet the new demand for ivory," said IFAW's Bell-Leask.

One recent study suggested that 4,000 or more elephants are being killed each year for the illicit ivory market.

If the past is any guide, surging demand from a new market should push up the price and entice even more poachers.

The price of ivory soared in the 1970s to meet fresh demand from newly affluent Japan, triggering a wave of poaching.

"The price of ivory jumped from $5.50 per kilo in 1969 to $7.50 in 1970 ... to $120 in 1987; and to $300 in 1989," writes Martin Meredith in his book "Africa's Elephant: A Biography".

"Elephants in the bush were suddenly worth small fortunes, not just to poachers but to a host of middlemen ... who settled over the trade like flies," he writes.

BLOOD-SOAKED MARKET

Hundreds of thousands of African elephants were slain for this lucrative but blood-soaked market for two decades until 1989, when the global ban on ivory sales was imposed. Countries such as Kenya were hard hit by ruthless and heavily armed gangs of poachers prowling the bush with impunity.

Conservationists say the ban on the trade, which has seen only limited easings for one-off auctions, halted the killings.

The World Conservation Union, a body whose estimates on animal populations are among the most authoritative, says elephant numbers in east and southern Africa are rising.

It said surveys showed elephant numbers in the two regions rose to 355,000 from 283,000 in the five years to 2002 -- a growth rate of about 4.5 percent per year.

Conservationists worry the new demand for ivory could provoke another round of slaughter.

And unlike other Asian states that provided the market in the past, China has a growing presence in Africa -- which means middlemen to facilitate the trade.

"The Japanese never established a commercial foothold in Africa for the ivory trade. But China by contrast is mushrooming its presence in Africa," Milliken said.

"This gives China access to both legal and illegal commodities. There have been numerous ivory seizures in Africa which involve Chinese nationals so we know they are engaged in the trade as one feature of their presence on the continent."

He said the Chinese government was aware of the problem and was trying to crack down on the trade -- but like all illegal activities that made lots of cash, this was difficult.

"Rogue" African elephants may soon hunt poachers
By Ed Stoddard
December 28, 2005
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-12-28T010917Z_01_SPI804113_RTRIDST_0_SCIENCE-ENVIRONMENT-ELEPHANTS-DC.XML

DINOKENG, South Africa (Reuters) - Tembo was a killer who faced the death sentence for his "crimes."

But the six-tonne bull elephant won a reprieve after a vet approached animal trainer Rory Hensman and asked him if he could mend Tembo's wild ways.

Now tourists are taking rides on Tembo's back in the bush at Dinokeng Game Reserve 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Johannesburg -- proving that grown elephants can learn new tricks.

Tembo and some of his jumbo friends may also be put to work soon protecting their own kind as "all-terrain" vehicles in anti-poaching patrols.

"It just shows that you can train African bull elephants ... the previous estimates were that you had to start when they were 12 to 15 months," said Dinokeng owner Larry Blundell.

Tembo was well past that -- about 18 years in fact -- when he went on the rampage which almost ended with a bullet in his huge skull.

RHINO RAMPAGE

An orphan of a cull in South Africa's Kruger National Park, he was relocated to a private game reserve.

He eventually found himself a female companion but another bull came along and successfully "wooed" her. Tembo still bears the scars of the fight he had with that bull in the form of a broken tusk.

More disturbingly, he also vented his rage by killing two rhinos and damaging the lodge at his reserve.

That past is hard to square with the gentle giant who curiously sniffs visitors with his trunk while children hug his telephone-pole like legs.

"Tembo has a wonderful nature -- he had lots of contact with people but when he was growing up, no training," his trainer Hensman told Reuters by phone from his base in the country's northern Limpopo province.

"We use a bilateral ask and reward system. When he does something you say well done and reward him," he said.

Elephants, especially the more malleable Asian variety, have been used by humans for war and work for more than 2,000 years.

But humanity's history with the pachyderms has also been marked by ruthless persecution and hunting -- and so a trainer's first job is to win over their instinctive mistrust of humans.

"Elephants are extremely intelligent and they can be trained to do all sorts of things. What is difficult is to get over their inherent fear of man," said Hensman.

Mabitsi, Dinokeng's other trained elephant, was also a "rogue" who was part of a group of four that broke through the fence at the Kruger Park, wreaking havoc on local citrus farms.

He was also due to be put down until Hensman's intervention.

ANTI-POACHING

Some animal welfare activists may take offence at the idea of a wild and majestic animal being trained to take humans on rides -- but the alternative for Tembo and Mabitsi would have been worse.

Hensman maintains that elephants, known for their emotional natures and complex social systems, clearly enjoy mixing with humans.

And Hensman's animals may soon be employed to help in the preservation of their own species and others.

Hensman originally began training elephants in his native Zimbabwe to use in anti-poaching operations and hopes to use some of his pachyderms in South Africa for that purpose. He has been in talks about this with the Kruger Park.

Elephants have an acute sense of smell, can travel anywhere in the bush, and don't break down -- making them ideal for patrols as well as tracking poachers.

"What is needed in out of the way places, especially in the rainy season, is an elephant. They are an excellent means of transport and don't need to be refuelled," said Hensman

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

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