In the discussions on the hunting of the collard 100 pounders on the Kenya/Tanzania border, an assertion was made 10” pounders are of advance age. That these advanced ages bulls who were not prime breeders.

I always assumed this. It was a win-win for hunters. The older animals in physical declines the best “trophy.” The impact on herd health not being diminished.

As I read the discussions, a lot of the above assertions from a modern point of view came out of South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana. See the conversation concerning Dr. Robertson. I think we can all agree Dr. Robertson’s work has centered around South Africa.

We know historically, Kenya/Tanzania border produced a good margin larger than 100 pounders in days lost.

We now have indisputable evidence one of the collard bulls was 35 years old. A prime age breeding bull. That assumes that a 35 year old bull on this region is prime breeding age.

The conversation should now focus not on the ethics or even the motives of collaring bulls in this region.

The point for a hunting conservation model, in my mind, for this specific region, needs to be not on us killing or targeting these young 100 pounders. Our conversation needs not to be on us not being able to target 100 pounders because of optics or governments. That is reactionary and case other actors in bad faith.

The conversation by us should be for this region targeting old bulls past, prime breeding age, with tusk not being the objective. That we need to refocus away from the narrative that 100 pounds on this region is a past prime, old bull.

A 25 pound 15 year bill is just a bad as 100 pound 35 year old bull.

Have at it.

The point should be in hunting conservation of bulls to remove those specimens that are near or on their last teeth. I see no point in letting a bull starve to death.

In think a great mistake is to see animals as fungible and what conservation methods apply to one applies to others.

For example, without looking it up, how many know the gestation period or sex ratio at birth of elephant? I know this type of thing is typically relegated to the scientists/wildlife managers, but it makes perfect sense to me to vary conservation methods to the specific animal with MAXIMUM benefit going to the animals at large . I always thought that was a hunter/conservationists aim.

Just want to make three points:

1. The world has been told that one of the hunted tuskers has been identified as a bull they named GilGil. We are told that the positive Identification was done from studying the skin pattern off photographs they were able to obtain from the hunted elephant. A believable source of such a photograph would have been from a phone camera of one of the staff/scouts involved in the hunt, and hence, most likely from a cheap Chinese phone producing limited pixel images. How accurate can such an ID method be?
2- We are also told by the same sources (who are fervently against hunting) that the bull was 35 yo, when the data that they collect, publish and proudly rely on as sacrosanct, indicated the bull was 36 and a couple of months at time of death. Why did they announce the wrong age, stating 35 instead of "over 36" or 36 and 2 months?
3- The same sources claim that the ivory of this elephant weighed 99 and 110 lbs. These weights have been stated as absolute measurements. How would they know this to be accurate? Have they had access to the ivory and measured the tusks? Have they been given the info from the Tz wildlife authorities? From the hunters? I have not seen any official announcement confirming the official weight of these tusks. What if the actual weight was closer to 80lbs per tusk, corresponding to a 36+ year old elephant. Would that affect the narrative that in this area, 100lbs tuskers are still of prime breeding age?

There were some interesting figures mentioned by Buzz in this old thread as well: Old or Young

This was from 2012:

quote:

There has been alot of discussion on lion ages here so I (= Buzz) thought I would give you all a little info on elephant as we have aged all our bulls ( up to 20 a season) and ele cows ( up to 30 a season) for the last 3 years on bulls and 8 years on cows.

We age them through Fiona Stansfield ( now Dr!) whom we have been providing ovaries for for the last 8 odd years ( See research on cmsafaris.com)

The oldest ele cows we have shot have been in there 60s with the oldest been 67. She was on her last tooth of her last molar (6th). The youngest was 12 years old and she was ovulating meaning she was sexually mature.

On the bulls the youngest we have shot was 22 while the oldest two were 40. The 22 year old was 35 lbs aside while the 40s were 48lbs ( Randy Matin- see Randy Martin hunt report) and Leon Komkovs ele which was 47lbs ( see Leons Hunt report)

Last year we shot two 70lbs ele that were 36 years old and 38 respectively. Genetically they were hundred pounders had they lived long enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanamich:
Just want to make three points:

1. The world has been told that one of the hunted tuskers has been identified as a bull they named GilGil. We are told that the positive Identification was done from studying the skin pattern off photographs they were able to obtain from the hunted elephant. A believable source of such a photograph would have been from a phone camera of one of the staff/scouts involved in the hunt, and hence, most likely from a cheap Chinese phone producing limited pixel images. How accurate can such an ID method be?
2- We are also told by the same sources (who are fervently against hunting) that the bull was 35 yo, when the data that they collect, publish and proudly rely on as sacrosanct, indicated the bull was 36 and a couple of months at time of death. Why did they announce the wrong age, stating 35 instead of "over 36" or 36 and 2 months?
3- The same sources claim that the ivory of this elephant weighed 99 and 110 lbs. These weights have been stated as absolute measurements. How would they know this to be accurate? Have they had access to the ivory and measured the tusks? Have they been given the info from the Tz wildlife authorities? From the hunters? I have not seen any official announcement confirming the official weight of these tusks. What if the actual weight was closer to 80lbs per tusk, corresponding to a 36+ year old elephant. Would that affect the narrative that in this area, 100lbs tuskers are still of prime breeding age?

Agree. As a guy who knows how they (antis) can work, if they had ANY photographic evidence it was Gilgil, they would surely show it as a means to garner support, no?

80 or 100 would be irrelevant.

The issue is the age.

The matter of this bill being 35 is beyond reasonable doubt based on the statements in the other tread.

Now, the burden would shift to the “no he is not 35 camp.”

36 and 36 is a distinction wo a difference. However, if one wants to disbelieve this 100 pounder was prime age bc the age is 36 and not the stated 35, that is one’s proghtive.

At this point, one has to do more than just declare group x is anti hunting. Therefore, they are liars. That is not going to win anyone in the middle. Only math and hard data will accomplish that.

Saying trophy hunting is conservation is a conclusionary statement. It is a talking point. It is not a rebuttal.

If prime age breeding bulls in this region are reaching 60-100 pounds. They should not be hunted. Right now, the burden of persuasion is upon hunters to demonstrate otherwise. We cannot just say our desire. We have to show the math.

The same goes for revenue from sort hunting. It is not enough in this debate to say if it pays it stays. We have to show a break down to the penny of how our dollars as the tourist hunter w the outfitter is paying for habitat, anti-poaching, and game herd health.

I do not care about strong antisocial. First, I care about us as hunters promoting our actions as conservation. Second, I care about the fence sitter. The semi-political person in the middle. You are not going to sway that person, who is our jury, with conclusionary statements and attempts to disregard the opposition.

I don’t think anyone is agreeing with trophy hunting young bulls.

I do object to trying to protect based solely on tusk size or based on publicity issues.

True objective science should prevail, but the antis get caught manipulating things so often, I tend to want anything they say independently verified.

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
80 or 100 would be irrelevant.

The issue is the age.

The matter of this bill being 35 is beyond reasonable doubt based on the statements in the other tread.

Now, the burden would shift to the “no he is not 35 camp.”

36 and 36 is a distinction wo a difference. However, if one wants to disbelieve this 100 pounder was prime age bc the age is 36 and not the stated 35, that is one’s proghtive.

To be clear you are taking the 35 year age at face value. It may be true.
Do they have incentive to lie for political and monetary reasons? Yes they do
Do they have these reasons to classify as prime breeding age? Yes they do
Do they have reason to classify at least one tusk above 100 pounds so as to call it a “Super Tusker” without any conformation of any of the above or source of information? Yes they do

Some of this information does conflict with known research and averages but is possible

I would say “Left Leaning” individuals are far more susceptible to take at face value statements from “the experts”

To be clear, it falls on us to rebut that age with more certainty. See above.

Claiming a potential conspiracy is not going to get it done.

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
To be clear, it falls on us to rebut that age with more certainty. See above.

Claiming a potential conspiracy is not going to get it done.

No it doesn't…you just proved my point
That’s like saying we must rebut “the anonymous sources” of The NY Times
Then the lies are repeated intentionally naming NY times as the credible source

Why on earth would you assume that to be true when there is clear reason to doubt ?

quote:

Originally posted by LHeym500:
To be clear, it falls on us to rebut that age with more certainty. See above.

Claiming a potential conspiracy is not going to get it done.

can’t look at it from lawyers point of view and non African hunter ( I assume you never did go to Africa )

Do you put same parameters on yourself with whitetail hunting?
I assume not so I think you shoot blanks on here
Oh here is the point, African outfitters know the best, Game departments set the quotas, we pay for hunt and we listen to PH what to do and what’s the best trophy the area offers.
We do the same thing everywhere we hunt if it is with an outfitter and try to do same in our own backyard

The whitetail example is a false equivalency.

Whitetail are not under scrutiny of international bodies and treaties.

See my comments above.

I have never hunted Africa. I have hunted internationally now many times.

Most voters have not hunted Africa and increasingly they have hunted no where.

If we do not look at ourselves, and provide real counter information instead of this anti-Hunter bad nonsense, we have beat ourselves.

Conclusionary platitudes and not fully formed conspiracy theories as rebuttals are not going to get us anywhere.

Then we must differ
I see your point as you want to compromise but antis never will
I abide by the laws of game departments and try to hunt for trophies, meat and mainly for the love of the chase and I will not cave to antis who are absolutely unscrupulous, immoral human beings who will throw locals under the bus
Good luck with your endeavors

I believe that the point Bwanamich is making is that the entire narrative may be on false premises.

In areas of heavy elephant populations…hunting mature breeding age bulls with average ivory should be (is to me) acceptable.

Hunting advanced age bulls with any size ivory makes sense everywhere.

I can agree that killing extraordinarily heavy prime breeding age bulls in any area should be a focus of concern. I believe Bwanamich is saying we don’t have real-evidence that this occurred.

If we are missing facts, then maybe the same professional hunting organization that submitted a letter regarding the event that said they would not comment on specifics should weigh in and comment on specifics. It cuts both ways, if they had evidence strongly suggesting that the contentions being advanced are wrong, wouldn't they weigh in? They are, in fact, representing the hunting groups that actually laid hands on the elephants in question and undoubtedly have pictures and information on the ivory.

I am not disagreeing Mike. Maybe they have their reasons. You yourself know that these are dicey situations to be in — even if the evidence is on your side. And, Bwanamich is certainly not an ‘uninformed’ person.

I guess my point is that there are always 3 sides to a story. So far, we have only heard theirs (Anti-hunters). And what they have said has been fanned across the world as the undisputed truth.

Why is the hunting party involved not refuting the claims made? Why should they? Ultimately, they have done nothing illegal and hence have no reason to justify their actions. Arguing against a mob of rabid ARA and AH, can be considered by many as a complete waste of time.

Here's another angle to this saga; 17 people were killed and 36 others injured in varying degrees of seriousness by elephants in that area over the last few years. Assuming Gilgil was responsible for the death of 3 of those killed, and injured another 2 over the course of a few years, would the ARA and AH be in support of him being legally hunted? Do you think they would publicly support or accept that GilGil should be shot?

They certainly don't make the same amount of noise calling for the putting down of culpable elephants that kill locals. They certainly don't write petitions, go on talk shows, TV, social media and so on calling for that animal to be killed. To the contrary. What does that tell us about their true motives?

I have said all I can.

In conclusion, we are not even in the fight using concessionary, unsupported statements and half formed conspiracy theories.

Until, we start arguing with specifics for the region we are hunting we just spinning tires in mud.

The focus should not be on anti/hunters are bad. The focus should be on the animals and habitat. The problem is we do not know how much of our hunting dollars in a given area goes to herd health, anti-poaching, community support, or habitat improvement/maintenance.

If we want to talk about deer or pheasant. A closer conversation is state Fish snd Wild Life agencies managing to maximize these billable species to the detriment of of wholistic ecosystems. For example, pheasant taking over prairie chicken nest. Are we here just to kill a lot of deer, or the make ecosystems more balanced?

I do not know if that is the case. The point is to rebut the above we have to do more then just declare hunting is conservation or the groups pushing the above are anti-hunting and wrong. It is on us to prove otherwise. With that we have to recognize they may be right. Such would require us to join in adjusting wildlife management. Otherwise, we are not conservationists.

That is the point. We advocate and engage in activities that are best for habitat, wildlife balance/health, and local community support. That requires with elephants not targeting prime breeding bulls. A little similar for the whitetail rebuttal is when public land designates an antler restriction to kill.

Simply saying 100 pounders everywhere are past prime (without data for that region), hunters are conservation, and antis bad is not an argument in response.

There is more evidence today that killing a heavy, prime age bull did occur than not. The observations of Dr. Robertson on tusk weight and age from Zimbabwe and South Africa do not apply.

Thus, I would like to see SCI, Kenya, Tanzania, and this group fund a project in this region to age this class of bulls in this region.

Just layman wide, we know historically this area would produce larger than 100 pounds that is the least weighted evidence that our two bulls of central discussion may have been younger. We are going to need to do better than the group pouting out 35/36 and change is anti/hunting to prove them wrong. They have put the cards forward w photographs and was the group monitoring these bulls.

Do we just want to be obstinate, or do we want to be conservationists? Do we want to just kill the biggest elephants, or do we want to use hunting restricted by principles of conservation?

There are times I cannot tell on this site.

Sort of disingenuous to call into question the “facts” but then give a group that should be in possession of the “facts” a pass on disclosing them on the basis that they have no duty or responsibility to disclose them. You can make the case that they have doubly done a disservice to the hunting community. One, they elected to hunt and shoot elephants that are alleged to be park elephants and super tuskers. Two, if aware of material facts to the contrary they let the false narrative run to the detriment of hunters. I suspect that if the material facts were materially wrong we would hearing more about that.

Mike,
On the topic of disingenuous…the preponderance of elephant hunted today spend time in parks. Are they all “park elephants?”

Secondly, as you should have some sympathy, why would/should someone willfully engage the anti-hunting community and subject themselves to their terrors if under no legal obligation to do so? As you should know, the people are nuts and have no brakes or scruples in ruining peoples lives — in fact they thrive on it.

quote:

The observations of Dr. Robertson on tusk weight and age from Zimbabwe and South Africa do not apply.

In my humble opinion the Greater Kruger system and Gonarezhou are very applicable to the area of discussion.

The Crook’s Corner region is also a historical region of larger than average ivory.

Even Dr. Robertson said his observations on Buffalo age and maturity based on horn development dod not apply once he moved to South Africa bc the food and habitat were different. He said this in Sports Afield.

We cannot extrapolate from a population in a completely different region.

Just like Deer in Texas versus Deer in Wisconsin.

I will call him and get his opinion. Elephant are not buffalo. The Greater Kruger System has at least as many if not more super tuskers as Amboselli with equal size.

Elephants once migrated over 100 mile distances routinely. And they live 5X longer.

The 2 areas both have history of producing these large bulls.

I am talking about disclosing information regarding the elephants that were shot. Not information regarding the hunter and PH, although in the case of at least one of the three that information is already out there.

As I said before, my point is simply that hunters (1) hunting elephants that typically live in national parks, and (2) are “super tuskers” with ivory over 100 pounds, do the overall cause of hunting more harm than good given the negative public perceptions of such hunting even among the public that is agnostic to hunting. Consequently the longer we persist in doing so the greater the likelihood that broader restrictions on elephant hunting are imposed.

Who should we believe??

Everyone has an agenda!

And for that they will bend any rules to justify that agenda!

I will believe the people with photographs who have been monitoring the bulls.

Again, I would like to see SCI, Kenya, Tanzania, and this group fund a project in this region to age this class of bulls in this region. We can run it through University scholarship.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
I am talking about disclosing information regarding the elephants that were shot. Not information regarding the hunter and PH, although in the case of at least one of three that information is already out there.

As I said before, my point is simply that hunters (1) hunting elephants that typically live in national parks, and (2) are “super tuskers” with ivory over 100 pounds, do the overall cause of hunting more harm than good given the negative public perceptions of such hunting even among the public that is agnostic to hunting. Consequently the longer we persist in doing so the greater the likelihood that broader restrictions on elephant hunting are imposed.

Mike, you have hunted elephant.

How often did the game scout or whoever take specific pictures for identification, like they do for lion?

I really doubt they have "specific information" in a government made, sanitized form.

If these anti hunting groups were not agitating about it, it wouldn't particularly be an issue; and we have pretty good evidence that they lie about the situations.

We certainly know from hunting that the estimates of tusk weight can be off by a significant amount, so just the tusks alone by weight are not adequate to identify beyond a reasonable doubt the identity of an individual animal.

I have no idea how they are so certain it was a particular elephant that was shot so quickly, but will grant that they probably have a pretty good handle on the resident population of the park. Note that the antis aren't offering up their proof, are they? All I have seen is a claim that they have seen kill photos which they state showed "unique" skin patterns to identify the particular elephant.

That and two collard bulls they are monitoring are gone. That they have been following for however long.

So you seriously believe there are no pictures of any of the three elephant, no measurements of the tusks, no weights for the tusks? How are they going to be exported with such info? I think sometimes we as hunters delude ourselves into believing what is convenient.

quote:

How often did the game scout or whoever take specific pictures for identification, like they do for lion?

The Game Scout's duties other than to ensure the laws on hunting are respected, are to record GPS coordinates of all game killed or wounded; measuring of all trophies and photos of particulars of Lion as per the new regulations.
Ivory is escorted to the govt. weigh station for official weighing, stamping and recording.

If he wants to take a selfie with any animal to show off later to his friends, I guess he is free to do so but will not take close-up photos of the skin pattern of an Elephant.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
So you seriously believe there are no pictures of any of the three elephant, no measurements of the tusks, no weights for the tusks? How are they going to be exported with such info? I think sometimes we as hunters delude ourselves into believing what is convenient.

Do I believe there are no photos? No.

Do I think that there is as Fulvio points out no identification type photos unless the hunter took them and the ARA types got them illicitly (and thus why they are not showing them...) possibly. I really doubt there are good quality photos from the game scout.

I really doubt that official government weights and the lengths that I have seen documented (which seem to be +/- several inches, and the weights can differ rather substantially based on nerve size from any estimate) make it rather easy to say CITIES tag elephant number 12345 is the same bull they want to call "Gilgil" especially when the timing of their report comes out relatively shortly afterwards.

Was this specific elephant collared? That has not been stated, and they stated that it was identified by a photo with skin patterns.

I am not saying it wasn't, but their definitive statement that it was is long on needing to take them at their word, with no real evidence that it was that bull.

Admittedly, there are not that many of them, and if one disappears and shortly thereafter a bull of "roughly" the right characteristics is registered it is likely to be the same animal, albeit not certain, but are these statistics public information? I don't think so in Tanzania.