http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=3092


Botswana can host 400,000 elephants - Jourbert

World acclaimed wildlife photographers, Derek and Beverly Jourbert, have sensationally claimed that Botswana can still carry twice as many elephants as it currently has.

By Staff Writer, Mon 04 Nov 2013, 18:24 pm (GMT +2)


The couple was shooting down the view that elephants, especially in Chobe, are greatly decimating the habitat, resulting in the decline of other wildlife species.

In an interview shortly after their presentation at the annual Kalahari Conservation Society dinner, the film makers estimated that Botswana has 200,000 elephants, which account for a third of the elephant population in Africa.

They said that the statistics should be a cause for joy rather than alarm because in future, when all elephants have been decimated in Africa, the whole world will be coming to Botswana for its elephants.

The filming couple said there is still a big stretch of forest that elephants have not yet occupied in northern Botswana. They said the beasts could occupy such wilderness in the future. Derek told The Monitor that elephants change habitat in 200 years.

“It is not even 200 years yet, and we are complaining about the habitat. These things are cyclic. After 200 years, elephants change the habitat from forests to grassland. Then other wildlife species, cattle and buffalo, will in-turn affect the grassland habitat causing it to grow forests. Habitats have not always been the same. They keep on changing all the time,” he said.

He further argued that elephants know how to manage their populations. He said that they even control their birth to balance out the population. He said when elephants reach an unmanageable population they naturally spread out to other areas, either in Botswana, or to neighbouring countries like Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

“Everybody has been saying there are too many elephants in Botswana since 1976. Elephants have mechanics of change. They move into forests, change it over 200 years, turn it into grassland, then they go, and the forests grow again. It’s awkward for us to say we can’t wait 200 years, it is not a snap shot change. Cattle move into grassland, then turn it into woodland, buffalo change it, elephants change it. In Botswana we have 200,000 elephants. In the whole of Africa (600,000), they have been shot everywhere at the rate of 25,000 a year, in turn we say let’s shoot them, but we don’t have too many elephants,” explained Derek.

So there you have it....

Wow. The depth of this stupidity is staggering!

It can host them once, then after that they will have to move elsewhere.

There is so much bullshit in just that single piece it's laughable. I'm gad he thinks that elephant live in a single homogenous environment that is not impacted by a single other factor.

That boy can drink one hell of a lot of kool aid. Would be funny if it wasn't so sad that the uninformed will believe him.

Dutch

Many years ago, him and his wife were on TV on a National Geographic channel.

A friend's wife commented on them.

"Does his wife think she is on a fashion show, rather than being in the African bush?"

He is touted as one of the best conservationist, so I suppose he has to play to the brainless city dwellers who have absolutely no idea how elephants live.

Except what he tells them!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Many years ago, him and his wife were on TV on a National Geographic channel.

A friend's wife commented on them.

"Does his wife think she is on a fashion show, rather than being in the African bush?"

He is touted as one of the best conservationist, so I suppose he has to play to the brainless city dwellers who have absolutely no idea how elephants live.

Except what he tells them!

Of course, one could ask how she finances her "fashion show." As others have said, the Jouberts seem to be prospering from their propaganda. Too bad they are not really helping the conservation cause.

I suppose that they may be serious, but then a lot of wrong-headed people are.

Yeah, Botswana can host 400,000 'phants, but shit, the hay bill? What a lying, coniving twat, and even worse are the mucking forons who keep him and his bucking fitch in in roast beef and gravy??

They just want to be the hosts.

quote:

Originally posted by Scriptus:
Yeah, Botswana can host 400,000 'phants, but shit, the hay bill? What a lying, coniving twat, and even worse are the mucking forons who keep him and his bucking fitch in in roast beef and gravy??

I honestly do not know, but for some unknown reason I strongly suspect that they would be vegetarians?

There is enough bullshit in the first post to fertilize a VERY large field!

quote:

He further argued that elephants know how to manage their populations. He said that they even control their birth to balance out the population. He said when elephants reach an unmanageable population they naturally spread out to other areas, either in Botswana, or to neighbouring countries like Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

They manage their populations . . . by starving to death.

I guess elephants have to show their pass ports at the border?
Or do they have to apply for a visa first?

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?aid=3286



Mother Nature is smarter than all of us

In this rejoinder, professional hunter BOB ROKOS argues that wildlife photographers Derek and Beverly Joubert�s dream of 400,000 elephants is a fantasy more suited to Disneyland.

By Staff Writer, Fri 08 Nov 2013, 17:09 pm (GMT +2)




I have just read an article entitled “Botswana can host 400,000 elephants – Joubert. This article (on page 2) and the article on page 4 of the same paper (The Monitor of Monday November 4, 2013) entitled “Film stars employ 180 Batswana” are about Derek and Beverly Jourbert conveying their views on anti-hunting and Botswana’s need for more elephants.


The article(s) have all the elements of a Disneyland film. With a vast uninhabited “El Dorado” type forests just waiting for elephants to populate in the Chobe, the elephants’ ability to self-control their populations and massive training and employment scenarios. Both articles have the flavour of shoddy representatives lobbying for approval through false promises of greener pastures for all their supporters.

All of this is band standing and green washing of the wildlife situation in Botswana came about by the banning of sport hunting for 2014. Although many feel that it is far too early for a celebration, look at what has happened in Kenya, for example. This once wonderfully rich wildlife country has, since the banning of sport hunting, lost 80 % of its wildlife. Only time will tell if Botswana walks the same path.

As for the “Film Stars” view on Botswana hosting 400,000 elephants:

The truth is simply that Botswana has too many elephants. Way too many! Infact, it is their influence on the environment that is impacting all the other species. The elephant issue is not a simple single-species conservation issue – it is embedded in a complex social-ecological system with important cross-scale effects and drivers.

Botswana currently has the largest elephant population on Earth. In the early 1960s, there were less than 10,000 elephants in Botswana. Since that time, their numbers have increased steadily five to six percent annually. By 1990, there were 50,000 elephants. In the following year, the Department of Wildlife Conservation and National Parks drew up a draft elephant management policy.

In that year (1991), it was established that the then-current elephant population of 55,000 was the maximum the country could sustain without the eventual loss of habitat so essential for species biodiversity. Unfortunately, the policy was never adopted or implemented, even though it made the recommendation that management of elephant numbers was necessary because of their effect on habitat. Botswana’s elephant numbers continued to increase steadily. By 1995, the population had increased to 80,000. By 2002, some estimates said it was 120,000, by 2005, 140,000, and now some 200,000 plus.

Could Botswana sustain a population of 400,000 elephants? And what are the consequences?

Elephants can and do greatly modify woodlands and habitat structure.

During the drought period (the 1990s and early 2000s), elephant numbers increased steadily by about six percent annually, while in the Moremi Game Reserve (which borders the Okavango swamps and where no hunting takes place), giraffe numbers over the same period decreased by eight percent annually.

Kudu numbers also decreased by 11% annually, as did lechwe by seven percent, tshesebe by 13% and wildebeest by 18%! (Source: Elephants Without Borders paper entitled “Dry Season Fixed-Wing Aerial Survey Of Elephants & Wildlife in Northern Botswana, Sept.-Nov. 2010.”)

All of our wildlife is important. Is the life of an elephant more important or sacred than that of a giraffe, for example, or a kudu which disappears because it no longer has trees to feed on? Everything in nature needs to be in balance, and when the balance tips too far in favour of the mega-herbivores, everything else falls apart.

Elephants damage crops, water installations for livestock, and not infrequently kill people in rural areas. When a rural farmer gets trampled to death by a herd of crop raiding elephants while protecting his/her property, will family members of the deceased rejoice that their loved one was killed by one of “nature’s little sweet hearts” and shout out “We need more elephants?” I don’t think so. My point is simply that Botswana’s elephant populations are growing exponentially and are running out of space.

But will the Jourberts get their dream of 400,000 elephants in Botswana? I don’t think so. There is one higher factor that controls the inhabitants of the planet, and she doesn’t live in Disneyland.

Mother Nature is smarter than all of us. Something is going to collapse, and when it does, I am sure it will not be attractive. Regrettably, it is going to be the other wildlife species that will be affected most. Gigantic environmental deprivation and the loss of Botswana’s biodiversity is a disaster just waiting to happen. Sport hunting could have been part of the solution. Instead, it is being used as the pretext for our lack of our wildlife, and now it is about to be banned.

I wonder who the staff writer is>

Well written

Well thought out

Right on.

Jeff

I do wonder if Mr. and Mrs P.O.S. Twatty Joubert remove the pips from their "mountain cabbage" before they smoke the stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwana Bunduki:
I wonder who the staff writer is>

PH BOB ROKOS (Click the link)