From what I have read, mixed or breeding herds of elephant are led by a mature cow. One of her primary functions is to remember the location of feeding areas and to lead the herd to them as changes in weather, human pressure, availability of food water etc. demand. Interestingly elephant have large and highly developed temporal lobes which enhance memory. Maybe the long memory and penut stuff is true...

Question: Given the pivotal social and leadership roles that cows play should we be shooting them (read tusk-less cows)?

Your inquiry assumes that the primary cow is tuskless. How frequent, or rare, is it that the leader of the group is tuskless?

CWW,

Don't have a clue but I'm not sure how one can tell who the leader is anyway. Tuskless are often shot now days but I think cows with tusks are also on the menu in some countries such as Zim.

Brett

First of all a tuskles cow may or may not be the matriarch of the herd and the matriarch may or may not be a tuskless cow. My initial thought is that since all matriarchs will eventually die, elephants must have a social mechanism to replace her without undully affecting their survival. Saying that, Ganyana who regularly posts here wrote his Doctoral dissertation on this issue. I will get a chance to read it next month when I am in Zim and the results of his study may change my opinion. I'll get back here on this issue when I return at the end of March.

465H&H

465

Good point about replacement. Look forward to hearing about your trip as well as Ganyana's work. Maybe he will weigh in here...

Brett

I think the real question is should we be sport hunting cow Elephants either with or without tusks. You'll get a lot of differing opinions here on this question - but to me, the answer is not usually. I personally believe that cows should only be shot as part of a culling process when the entire family unit is taken out in it's entirety.

Of course there are odd occasions that this rule should be broken, but only very rarely. That said, Africa is a large continent and some areas might require these odd occasions more than others. The "Zambezi ladies" (quite rightly) have a fearsome reputation for aggressiveness. A lot of people claim this is because of the preponderance of tusklessness. It could also be because so many people have a habit of shooting them and the close family ties make them respond to this with added aggression. We'll never know the real reason.....

When I shot my tuskless we took quite a lot of precaution. For one, there were two tuskless cows in the herd we came upon. One did have a calf so she was not a target. So we had to be very careful while in that thick jesse that we picked out the right cow.

The whole herd never knew we were there. Never through the whole hunt, start to finish. They never smelled us, never saw us, only heard a noise when I did kill my cow. There was a very brief commotion over the noise but amazingly the entire herd went on feeding as they were prior to my shot.

We waited for them to move off on their own before approaching my downed cow.

I know each situation can vary with circumstance, but to me, this was the most ideal as there seemed to be very little, if any, disruption to the herd.

Ann,

My experience with a tuskless cow was the complete opposite. The herd, which was quite agitated, stayed around the dead cow for a long time. We shouted at them, shook the bushes, threw rocks and fired the Game Scout's AK. A couple of rounds fired from my .416 was the only thing that moved them.

Regards,

Terry