It would be interesting to see a cleaned skull of an animal without the sockets side by side with one from a "normal" animal that had the sockets.

I had always thought/believed, and explained to people that the tuskless condition was genetically controlled just like naturally polled(hornless) hereford cattle.

Not having the sockets however seems to me to be a completely different mechanism. I can understand Lane's explanation, but that would result from an actual medical process or an incidental accident. I am just curious, in the same way about the % of tuskless animals in any region, what is the % of animals without the sockets.

My interest runs more from the aspect of the possibility of an evolutionary change, and in reality both the tuskless and socketless conditions can be or are genetically induced evolutionary changes.

It is also interesting to hear the various theories concerning the killing of tuskless cows and the possible increase in aggressiveness of animals in the groups that the cows were removed from.

.465 & CHC,

The socket forms as the tusk bud grows. If no dentigerous tissue present to form the space occupying mass...it should be expected for the alveolar bone to NOT form a socket and remodel to look "socket-less"...whether in-utero or 70 years old.

Skulls with-out tusks but with sockets may have different causes or they have some number of odontoblasts to create a space occupying effect so that the socket forms. One would have to biopsy the contents of the interior alveolus to determine what tissue is within.

It would be interesting if someone did an in depth study and published the results even if this does not really have that much to do with the overall management decisions and the insitu results of killing tuskless cows in general in any region.

Sort of like the chicken or egg first argument. Is a socket necessary to form the tusk or is the reverse true????

465H&H

Maybe the reason the tuskless animals are more aggressive is because they are tuskless, "small man syndrome".

I may not have the big teefers but I can kill your arse anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
.465 & CHC,

The socket forms as the tusk bud grows. If no dentigerous tissue present to form the space occupying mass...it should be expected for the alveolar bone to NOT form a socket and remodel to look "socket-less"...whether in-utero or 70 years old.

Skulls with-out tusks but with sockets may have different causes or they have some number of odontoblasts to create a space occupying effect so that the socket forms. One would have to biopsy the contents of the interior alveolus to determine what tissue is within.

Lane,

Have never found a skull with sockets unless the tusks were still present, other than some which had been found intact and whose tusks had already been pulled.
Those animals that were tusk-less in life left behind skulls with no sockets of sorts, just a bone formation in place thereof and giving the skull a somewhat 'deformed' look.
In colonial times the game dept. often requested hunters with elephant permits to kill any tusk-less animal (the permit was replaced FOC)they might come across - theory was that tusk-less bred a tusk-less.
You might be able to enlighten us on the veracity of this theory.

quote:

Originally posted by fujotupu:

quote:

Originally posted by ledvm:
.465 & CHC,

The socket forms as the tusk bud grows. If no dentigerous tissue present to form the space occupying mass...it should be expected for the alveolar bone to NOT form a socket and remodel to look "socket-less"...whether in-utero or 70 years old.

Skulls with-out tusks but with sockets may have different causes or they have some number of odontoblasts to create a space occupying effect so that the socket forms. One would have to biopsy the contents of the interior alveolus to determine what tissue is within.

Lane,

Have never found a skull with sockets unless the tusks were still present, other than some which had been found intact and whose tusks had already been pulled.
Those animals that were tusk-less in life left behind skulls with no sockets of sorts, just a bone formation in place thereof and giving the skull a somewhat 'deformed' look.
In colonial times the game dept. often requested hunters with elephant permits to kill any tusk-less animal (the permit was replaced FOC)they might come across - theory was that tusk-less bred a tusk-less.
You might be able to enlighten us on the veracity of this theory.

The picture I posted above shows a tusk socket without a tusk. The hole for the tusk is still present. She obviously lost that tusk at point in the near past. I have also seen a very large bull at Charisa with no tusk socket or tusk on the left side and a socket with a small piece of tusk 1" X 3/4" on the right side. We almost shot it as a tuskless until the PH noticed the sliver of a tusk.

465H&H

I put tuskless elephant (not just cows) on open quota in all safari areas in Zimbabwe in 1997 and permitted the various rural District Councils (who control CAMPFIRE) to do the same.

The reason was simple ...we had seen an increase in the number of tuskless elephants in the Zambezi Valley from an estimated 1% of the population to 8% Between the 1975 census and the 1995 one. We had also recorded tuskless (Adult) bulls for the first time.

In 14 months or so of arguments that raged between the various Parks ecologists and outside assistance - Like WWF and Ele'smap it was finally agreed that sport hunting and poaching were killing off the biggest tuskers- and that there was obviously some negative impact on the gene pool.

The hunting of cow elephantsw had been stopped in 1990 except in Doma and a few specialised locations where it was deemed necessary to keep the herds out of vulnerable woodland types.

Once we had the elephant uplisting at CITES COP 10 safely out of the way, I was free to impliment the unrestricted hunting. For two years Tuskless elephant were on 'open quota' in the Safari areas- meaning if you saw one you could shoot it - there was no quota the operator had to adhear to- after that they were put on quota just like everything else.

In the first two years we had 67 tuskless bulls taken, but very few since and it has gradually changed into hunting tuskless cows.


Some of the bulls were true 'tuskless'- ie had no tusk sockets and had never had tusks- a few were animals that had lost both tusks at some stage in their lives and one had two cancerous looking growths in the tusk sockets but nothing protruding.

these strange 'cancer like' growths are not unknown- often seen in single tuskers but I have only ever seen one elephant with two such growths. - They are obviously not cancer- The biggest single tusk came from an elephant at Mana pools that had one tusk weighing 196 lbs(89kg) and this strange growth in the other tusk socket that weighed an increadible 48,5lbs (22kg). These strange grows are very dense- much more so than regular Ivory.

Was I right to put tuskless on quota? Sadly I don't think there is any real follow up on the effects (good or bad) and Parks is now just interested in money as are the councils- and Tuskless represent an 'extra' quota to be milked that CITES accepts as being based on sound scientific principals.

Thanks for the input Don.

quote:

Originally posted by 465H&H:
Sort of like the chicken or egg first argument. Is a socket necessary to form the tusk or is the reverse true????

465H&H

Having studied embryology...I can tell you the bony alveolar socket forms around the the tooth bud which is a differentiated group of tooth producing cells. I believe they derive from the ectoderm and the bone of course from mesoderm. Without the enveloped bud...the socket does not form.

Don, the growths could be cancers of tooth origin cells like ameloblastomas. These type of tumors are not incompatible with long life.

Fujo,
No definitive work has been done on the heritability of the tusklessness...at least to my knowledge. The work that has been done is suggestive of a sex-link recessive gene...accounting to the preponderance of tuskless cows. However, the emergence of tuskless bulls in recent history makes this theory more complicated than a simple x-linked recessive gene.

It is thought to be heritable and influenced by ivory hunting.

I saw a tuskless cow in Manyara last month. If so that would seem to indicate that this is nothing new and that the difficulty in making a living has kept this "gene" in check all by itself.

If hunting tuskless is done to remove the "gene", then why do they care if the tuskless has a dependant calf? Wouldn't you want and need to take out all her calves if it's all about removing the gene? I guess I just do not understand the logic of Zimbabwe's system.

quote:

It is thought to be heritable and influenced by ivory hunting.

Lane,

Back in the colonial era, when elephant hunting was legal from a commercial point of view, (17 shillings per pound of ivory), the elephant population was inestimable and poaching was nowhere near the current level and tusk-less specimens (male & female) were ever present but not in the numbers we see today where a high %age of cows are tusk-less.

The conclusion seems to be that no one knows what effect shooting of tuskless does to the gene pool. Can talk it to death with mumbo jumbo and try to act scientifically but it's still just talk. In the years that I hunted tuskless I saw tuskless with tusked babies and what appeared as tuskless babies.

And where they weren't annihilated there seemed to be a constant number of tuskless cows. Hunting the few on quota didn't appear to have any effect. And there are still tuskless bulls taken. If all the tuskless were killed who's to say there wouldn't be any more tuskless. They came from somewhere.

And who's to say the tuskless aren't the most valuable. Once the poachers/governments kill off all the ivory carriers there will only be tuskless left.

Even though everyone's view of history began the day they were born, the tuskless have been around for a long time before that. And if given half a chance they'll be around a lot longer than anyone here.

And killing off elephant with big ivory has been going on for hundreds of years. It didn't start yesterday.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
The conclusion seems to be that no one knows what effect shooting of tuskless does to the gene pool. Can talk it to death with mumbo jumbo and try to act scientifically but it's still just talk. In the years that I hunted tuskless I saw tuskless with tusked babies and what appeared as tuskless babies.

And where they weren't annihilated there seemed to be a constant number of tuskless cows. Hunting the few on quota didn't appear to have any effect. And there are still tuskless bulls taken. If all the tuskless were killed who's to say there wouldn't be any more tuskless. They came from somewhere.

And who's to say the tuskless aren't the most valuable. Once the poachers/governments kill off all the ivory carriers there will only be tuskless left.

Even though everyone's life began the day they were born, the tuskless have been around for a long time before that. And if given half a chance they'll be around a lot longer than anyone here.

And killing off elephant with big ivory has been going on for hundreds of years. It didn't start yesterday.

Will,

I don't think the management goal is to eliminate the tuskless gene from the population. That as you have noted would be near impossible. I do believe that the management goal should be to reduce the incidence of tuskless to as low a level as possible.

465H&H

Then kill them all!

(I volunteer. )

Anyone done any genetic studies on tusklessnes? How might a Punnett Square look for this?

Okay, now that we have officially turned this into another as far as the effects of genetics on the % of tuskless animals, either sex, it really does not address the effects on herd/group dynamics by the removal of the tuskless cows. Where do they fit in the hierarchy of the group/herd, and does removing these animals make the remainder more aggressive?

Party pooper!

Crazyhorse- the most bad tempered elephants I have ever had to work with were in Gonarezhou in the south east with near 0% tuskless in the herds. They were just mean.

The only elephant I have ever had to shoot in self defence was a youngish (tusked) Bull- He was stressed (weeping temporal glands) but not in Musht and didn't appear to be carrying lead...and being a bull you cannot even attribute his bad temper and poor sence of judgement to the elephant equivalent of PMS.

Lane- Next time you are in Harare we must try and arange a tour of the ivory store- those stange cancerous like growths from the tusk sockets of several really big bulls are there and I would love your opinion.

Don,
I'll take you up on that...would love to see'em. Maybe we could take my Harare veterinarian friend Dr. Karl Van Laeran...he would love to see them as well. Karl is good friends with Raoul and helps him with rhino from time to time.