My daughter is involved in a discussion at school about elephants and elephants hunting. For some reason their attention focussed on Zimbabwe. Of course the general opinion is that there are hardly any elephants left in Africa, that they can't be hunted, etc. etc.

I'd love to give her some factual info on elephant numbers in Zim, and the annual quota for hunting. Are these available somewhere?

Some estimates on ele populations in other countries would be helpful too.

Thanks!

Frans

Sorry the link does not work any more, but here is a story from earlier this year:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070523/wl_africa_afp/zimb...asW84a5.o_94wBi96Q8F

Zimbabwe mulls elephant cull

HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe is considering culling a ballooning elephant population that it is struggling to control, an official said Wednesday.

"The elephant population is increasing at the rate of five to seven percent annually," Edward Mbewe, spokesman for the parks and wildlife management authority, told AFP.
"We have about three options to consider which include culling, but the international world will not accept this."

The decision came after Mali and Kenya proposed to lobby for a complete ban on the ivory trade for 20 years at the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) summit.

The move has won the backing of six other African countries.

"We will be in a dilemma if that proposal by Kenya and Mali goes through," Mbewe said.

Besides culling Zimbabwe's wildlife, authorities are also considering contraception and translocation to control the rising elephant population.

But Mbewe said "translocation is very expensive and will not solve anything as we will transfer problems to another area."

The southern African country has an elephant population of more than 100,000 but has the capacity for only 45,000.

Mbewe said if the ivory trade ban is endorsed it will lead to conflict for territory between humans and elephants as the beasts grow in numbers.

Elephants have been protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) since 1989, but in 1997 rules were relaxed allowing Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell a portion of their ivory stocks under regulated trade.

Link to same story from Zimbabwesituation.com:

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/may24_2007.html#Z14

A different story from Zim:

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/may27a_2007.html#Z16

Another:

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/may24a_2007.html#Z16


Ron Thompson's book is very good, and you might look at Mr. Harland's recent book as well. My copies are at the office today.

Web searching will show that estimates are that Zim's elephant population is well over its carrying capacity.

Edit: If you search here you should be able to find the quota numbers as I think they were posted recently.

Frans,

Charles Helm's report, quoting sources in Zimbabwe, is about right. The only major change being that CITES rejected the proposal by Kenya and Mali at the meeting, so there will be limited trade in elephant products and ivory trophies can be moved legally.

This is a complex and very emotive subject and as expected, governments don't have the guts to do the right thing and sort out the rapidly growing numbers of elephants in those countries affected.

Herewith very abbreviated notes which your daughter might find of interest:

The elephant population in Zimbabwe (and Botswana and Kruger Park in South Africa) is probably double the recommended number for the available habitat, so yes, a major culling programme is required.

Contraception does NOT reduce the population, and would only MAYBE stabilize it if carried out efficiently. This is virtually impossible over the vast areas of wilderness like Hwange Park, Zambezi valley, Gonarezhou etc. and only practical in small parks and game ranches. There could be other side effects on the social and age structures of the elephant families involved - nobody knows.

Translocation sounds great but has huge problems too: Who pays the massive costs? Where would many thousands of elephants find new homes within a reasonable radius of their present homes - Mozambique might place some, Botswana definitely not, South Africa definitely not, Namibia maybe, Zambia not and so on. Then, once those adjacent populations expand, where will their excess animals be exported to? By the tens of thousands?? With the expanding human populations, elephant habitat can only shrink, not increase.

Hunters visiting Zimbabwe will have seen the extensive damage to vegetation by high numbers of elephants, particularly alarming are the deaths of elephant-damaged baobab trees, some of which are as old as two, three, even four thousand years. Then there are the effects on other species, be they grasses, trees, insects, mammals, reptiles and birds when the habitat is changed dramatically by the elephants.

People who condemn culling out of hand fail to understand the effects on other living organisms of elephant overpopulation, nor do they provide answers to the problem. Humans forced the animals to inhabit certain areas
set aside for wildlife, thus are bound morally and in practice, to manage those areas for the benefit of all. If impala, buffalo, wildebeeste or elephants become too numerous, they have to be controlled to suit the carrying capacity of their habitat. Culling has worked in the past, and so it must work in the future.

The numbers of elephants taken annually by sport hunters on safari is minimal(a few hundred) and makes no dent in the big numbers. Probably more are killed illegally by poachers and other "well connected" types. This is an area of concern and can get out of hand as happened in Kenya and Tanzania in years past.

Best of luck,
Richard.

Author of: The Hunting Imperative; African Epic; Ndlovu - The Art of Hunting the African Elephant.(Available from Rowland Ward Publications and Safari Press)

quote:

Originally posted by Harland:

Hunters visiting Zimbabwe will have seen the extensive damage to vegetation by high numbers of elephants, particularly alarming are the deaths of elephant-damaged baobab trees, some of which are as old as two, three, even four thousand years. Then there are the effects on other species, be they grasses, trees, insects, mammals, reptiles and birds when the habitat is changed dramatically by the elephants.

To Richard's point, it is difficult to imagine unless you see it the destruction large groups of elephants can do to an area. They will push over trees just to eat a morsel or two and move on. Some areas look like bombed out areas from Europe after WWII, with all the trees ripped off about four to six feet above the ground. Authors have written about how this destruction can change the entire character of an area, from woodlands to something much more barren. I would have never imagined just how destructive they can be had I not seen it. It is really no surprise, when you consider that they eat hundreds of pounds of food a day and have very poor digestive systems. What surprised me was the waste, large limbs or entire trees destroyed for a bite or two and then on to the next tree.

Ditto to all of the above from what I have seen, heard and read. My understanding is that the population is about twice what the land can handle and this is happening in several countries.

The annual take in Zim is about 500 I believe. When you consider that the growth rate is around 5% and let's just say the population is 100,000 (it's more than that)...that means the population expansion each year is 10 times the amount of those removed. We're not even stabilizing the situation.

I have wondered if men like Richard would answer the call if culling was reinstated? What say you Richard? Is there any other way to do this? What will happen when we don't do it because culling is considered taboo by much of the world? At some point, I believe the animals will crash the eco-system and there will be widespread starvation and destruction as they enter the villages to find food. As they say, only men can destroy the environment faster than elephants.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:

quote:

Originally posted by Harland:

Hunters visiting Zimbabwe will have seen the extensive damage to vegetation by high numbers of elephants, particularly alarming are the deaths of elephant-damaged baobab trees, some of which are as old as two, three, even four thousand years. Then there are the effects on other species, be they grasses, trees, insects, mammals, reptiles and birds when the habitat is changed dramatically by the elephants.

To Richard's point, it is difficult to imagine unless you see it the destruction large groups of elephants can do to an area. They will push over trees just to eat a morsel or two and move on. Some areas look like bombed out areas from Europe after WWII, with all the trees ripped off about four to six feet above the ground.

Mouse93,

That is a GREAT photo - illustrates exactly the effects we are talking about. This should be stuffed, with maximum force, down the throats of the bunny hugging brigade. As I write this, wild animals are dying in national parks because the dry season effects (shortage of food and water) are greatly magnified by the wholesale elephant damage. Do the anti culling folks sit and watch baby elephants die slowly alongside kudu and warthog carcases, around a dry waterhole in the middle of a destroyed environment?

Yukon Delta,

Everything you say is dead right, Bryan. The population growth is running away from us and makes future actions more difficult to implement with each passing day. The prospect of culling 40 000 to 50 000 elephants in Zimbabwe alone, (let alone Botswana and Kruger National Park) poses massive logistical difficulties, even if spread over, say, five years. To physically handle those carcases then cure, store and market the meat and hides and bones needs a big operation. The culling season would be the cool, dry months - April to September - so to cull 10 000 in 180 days means 55 elephants killed EVERY day. Paul Grobler handled daily numbers like this in the 1960-70's but half the total in half the months. Today in Zimbabwe, is there an organization that can cope with something on this scale? Very doubtful! The expertise and equipment has mostly disappeared by now I imagine, and of course political interference will inevitably screw the thing up. The outlook is as grim as you describe.

To answer your question, yes, I would certainly play an active part in a culling operation, if asked to assist. My aim (sorry, no pun intended) would be to train teams to do the shooting in the correct way and to help the individuals cope with the mental stresses of mass killing. It is not a pleasant job! It is NOT hunting.

There is no way to reduce these big numbers of elephants other than culling.

One of the objections that the anti-culling people raise is, "What if your so-called scientific research is incorrect and in fact the habitat could carry many more elephants than you tell us?" My answer to that is simply, "No problem! If we over-cull, the elephants will breed up again to greater numbers in a relatively short time." As you point out, populations grow at around 5% per annum. That's fast!

Guess I've rambled on enough!

Richard.

Author of: The Hunting Imperative; African Epic; Ndlovu - The Art of Hunting the African Elephant (Available from Rowland Ward Publications and Safari Press)

Take this opportunity, don't waste it and make this one of, or the one, little project(s) that you become involved in at your child's school. Tha fact that you are in Canada may or may not be working against your becoming involved in the class over a topic such as this (here in Texas opening day of deer season was/is a school holiday some places). But there is no better expert alive today that is as erudite and credentialed as Richard Harland and he is essentially here, at your disposal if you will (sorry RH). But all you need do is print his responses and put together a simple presentation along with the facts as WE know them, input from other sources, printed or by quote and get it to the open minds.

I want to say again to Richard, thank you sir for your invaluable advice on these forums. You have truly been there and I can't say enough thanks for making yourself available to us. Surely you must be up to your ears in red tape as you try to process your "removal". That still just hacks me off but you're a big man and you'll make it. You Zim boys always do...and you are not "rambling" but by all means, continue to ramble.

Your comments on advising a cull team and essentially counseling them through it are very sobering. A part of me (and many others here) would like to say we would join a cull team assuming that were a possibility which of course it is not. The other part of me tries to understand your thoughts here and in your books...it would probably ruin most of us. I could do it for awhile but for how long and at what cost I cannot say.

Bill's questions on PAC hunts are certainly puzzling to many of us. I truly don't understand the reasoning behind much of this.

I saw no shortage of Ele's in Zim back in February, in fact, they were too plentiful. Several of us fellow AR members submitted our personal experiences to SCI before the June CITES meeting in Hague. Right now there are some exceptional cull opportunities available, and even that offers little resolution to the problem. LDK

I shot a Zimbabwe elephant in August. When non-hunter (not ANTI) friends find out, they are aghast. "How could you?" Eles are widely believed to be almost extinct.

Exceptional cull opportunities available? What are you referring to? There is no "culling" per se that I am aware of and Richard alludes to the fact that culling is not taking place...Bill reminded us that even PAC hunts are drying up.

There are upward towards 100k ele in Zim. Yes?

It is the same in the Caprivi Strip, in northeastern Namibia.



Elephant in unsustainable numbers are destroying the entire ecosystem. Local extinctions of animals and plant life are occurring.

Elephant populations are truly and literally out of control in southern Africa.

Humans have also been known to overpopulate in Africa.

Oldcoyote,

I get the identical reaction from some of my uninformed friends when they learn you have been elephant hunting in Africa. "How can you shoot near extinct species like that"? The liberal press and the anti's have done their job well.
Why doesn't Zimbabwe offer more non-trophy elephant packages or cow hunts?

Dak

Dakota, that is the question all of us are asking with no good answers received. They should get advice from the safari industry as they are the ones paying many of the conservation bills.

Steve, do they operate in Zim? I thought they only worked in Namibia. Seems odd that they would have info whereas the local guys are not offering anything that I have heard.

quote:

Originally posted by dakota45056:
Oldcoyote,

I get the identical reaction from some of my uninformed friends when they learn you have been elephant hunting in Africa. "How can you shoot near extinct species like that"? The liberal press and the anti's have done their job well.
Why doesn't Zimbabwe offer more non-trophy elephant packages or cow hunts?

Dak

I too have heard this line of questions. I tell the individual that if we were to take a drive any afternoon in the farming country around DC, we could count the whitetails that we see and then go to Zim and take an afternoon drive in some areas and count the elephants we see and we'll see more elephants.

And this is true, in my experience. I've seen as many as 175 eles watering together in the dry at the time Angwe River while hunting in Chewore South. We counted to 125 but lost count as more joined from both banks of the Angwe, from Dande and from Cheowre.

Then I tell them, if they're tired of slamming on the brakes to avoid the whitetails and tired of the whitetails eating their gardens, try a 4, 6, 10 ton deer.

Of course the lefties hate hunting and love wildlife - but only until the wildlife eats their azaleas. Then they want t give the wildlife birth control!!

JPK

I cannot answer the question as to why PAC hunts in Zim are becoming less available to clients. One thing is for sure, the politics and competition throughout the safari industry is more and more cutthroat (Tanzania too??) and this might be one factor.

My phone does not work at the moment so I cannot even follow this question up with my buddies in the safari world.

Our colleague Ganyana is in a position to know more on this subject, I'm sure, as would be Buzz Charlton or other operators you guys know personally.

The one cull I know of in Zim scheduled for 2007 was cancelled - it was only 50 elephant. Culling does not/should not happen in the hot months for the obvious reason that meat spoils quickly. So a "cull" at this time of the year is highly suspect!

There is a certain amount of elephant shooting which is neither crop raiders (PAC) nor culling for population control, but to give meat to people, mainly politically motivated. I was asked to carry out one of these shoots but declined for the very reason of not wanting to end up a scapegoat amongst the political brawling. Got enough problels that way already!!

Richard.

Author of: The Hunting Imperative; African Epic; Ndlovu - The Art of Hunting the African Elephant (Available from Rowland Ward Publications and Safari Press)

Thanks for the info!

Frans

We will be offering PAC hunts again in Zim in 2008, starting in January. These will be 7 day hunts this year and while the price is not final it will be under $7000. Not exportable but we can work something out with hide products eg feet, guncases etc. Can be combined with CITES leopard 14 days same area and/or extended to 14 days for plains game but this requires a relocation to a better area for PG.

The total herd that lives in Zim and Eastern Bots (they migrate back and forth) is estimated to be 100,000. The annual growth rate is 3%. Only 500 cites tags plus circa 200 pac means 2000 plus addl elephants per year.

We also have PAC in Bots but more expensive than Zim.

7k is a good price.

Most sources say the annual growth rate is about 5%, including Richard Harland. If that is true, then your numbers are off by 1/2. No matter how you look at it, the elephants are too plentiful by at least 100% for their range.

I believe that multi ele culls, more than a mere "handful", need to be done when it is cool enough to recover the meat without spoilage. This for a couple of reasons, foremost is that it provides some defense against the antihunters who will scream anyway, but can you image how much louder if the eles were just left to rot? Also, in a protien starved country and community, it is the right way of doing it.

The problem with doing it without participation of paying hunters is that no one has the means to pay for the recovery and distribution without the offsetting "trophy" fees or participation fees that paying hunters would provide.

Thus the call for "pros only if it must be done at all", is in tension with the reality of getting the job done efficiently or even at all.

JPK

Why would you target large bulls in a culling operation? An elephant is an elephant as far as the carrying capacity of the environment. IE just another mouth to feed. So why whack a truly valuable trophy in culling?
Jeff

You wouldn't, you would kill an entire herd at a time including all of the cows and the half growns and youngsters as well as any bulls that might be accompanying them.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by yukon delta:
Steve, I wasn't ignoring your comment...just doing some research. Spoke to 2 different Zim operators with much knowledge & experience. Both stated the proposed "cull" with Namibian PHs was not correct and one of them stated it was illegal and possibly even a scam. According to them it is illegal for a foreign company to operate in Zim. The extra quotas are only for next year and scattered accross 40 CAMPFIRE Concessions and will all be allocated internally.

Bryan,

I received a reply from the Safari Operators Association (SOAZ) today. They in turn had questioned National Parks on this Namibian operator selling elephant hunts in Zim and were told NO WAYS was this on the cards. They also wanted any names of foreign PH's or operators who were trying to sell this type of hunting in Zim.

On the strength of this information sent to me, it would seem that this is a con trick. In fact 'hoax' was the word used by SOAZ. So guys, beware!!

The 'cull 1000 elephants for rural community consumption' is a commendable plan and hopefully will be carried out in an orderly fashion. No details on this yet as far as I can find out.

Richard.

Author of: The Hunting Imperative; African Epic; Ndlovu - The Art of Hunting the African Elephant. (Available from Rowland Ward Publications and Safari Press)

Frans,
you might also want to get hold of a report from Ron Thomson called "Managing our wildlife heritage"
It is a short 120 page book and the ISBN code is 0-62037-140-4.
It will give a lot of info which can be used to educate the misinformed.

John