It seems like every time I mention elephant hunting I get the "aren't they endangered" stare and questions. As you and I know, they certainly aren't endangered and are in fact in danger of overpopulating their environment in many areas. Do any of you have actual data on elephant populations? I recall someone recently said there there were more elephants in Africa that there are elk in North America. Is that true? If so, it gives a very vivid picture of the real elephant population. Do you have other illustrations that can equip us to argue this issue outside of emotion?

Try going to the SCI website, maybe they have some data. Anectodally speaking, I can tell you that the elephant population in Africa is close to 800k and while they are gone from some places, they have overpopulated others. I believe Kruger National Park has a problem with overpopulation. I'd be interested to see if you can come up with solid references. jorge

From a couple of sources, I have gathered that there are about 600,000 African Elephants. http://www.awionline.org/pubs/Quarterly/winter2001/elephantlistening.htm and about 800,000 North American Elk http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/noframe/c273.htm .

KNP is estimated to be able to support 7000 Elephants before they begin to overpopulate their habitat. It currently holds 11000 and there is a big debate now about whether they should cull the 4000 excess or just let the population peak and then stand by and let the die off happen.

One argument is that this allows the fittest to survive and the weakest to go to the wall.... in other words natural selection. The other argument is cull whole family units and bulls.

No-one has conducted an "All Africa" count for some years now, However Elephant populations are estimated to increase by around 10-15% per year.

Hope that helps.

In volume 27 issue 3 of Gray's Sporting Journal there is a fascinating article by Terry Wieland. It is a must read for any who might engage in the "endangered elephant" conversation.

Sorry, I forgot to mention the title of the article. It's called "A Political Animal".

I was just at Kruger last week and I can assure you there are noooo shortages of elephants anywhere around that park, and it's huge. We saw some very nice bulls as well.

Stonecreek,

Ian Douglas Hamilton quotes 15% as a rough maximum in an area where the herds do not feel pressured. Ron Thomson quotes slightly less. Other "experts" (if there is such a thing) seem to agree on something in-between. Joyce Poole, I believe is in rough agreement with IDH.

I would (with respect) question the statement that twenty years ago, or at any other time the Elephant pipline was nearly empty. I don't believe that the (Africa wide) Elephant population has ever found itself even close to that position. I would however, say that individual areas or even countries have found their Elephant populations dwindling alarmingly and even becoming locally extinct. But
the Africa wide population has never been threatened. The restricting factor in African Elephants has never been their numbers or speed of population increase. The problem has always lain with ever restricting habitat, human encroachment and loss of migratory memory and routes............ I'd also say that the opportunities to hunt Elephant have been better for many years than they are now.

[ 08-21-2003, 00:12: Message edited by: shakari ]

Steve: you quote Ron Thompson in your reply. May I ask if he is still living?. I�ve read with great pleasure one of his works, "Mahohbob" if I remember well.
Regards

Hi Nainitel,

Yes he is still alive and going well and has just written a new book called "A Game Wardens Report" it's a limited edition of 1000 and can be ordered from magron@ripplesoft.co.za Cost is around ZAR300 plus postage.

He also wrote "The Wildlife Game" which is also a great read.

Cheers

Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and now Zambia and Mozambique are part of the eleesmap programme with accurate counts, conducted by their own departments and/or WWF.

Despite much negative publicity the survey methods have stood up to all the international scruteny at CITES etc.

For Zimbabwe, in the face of poaching, culling, problem animal controll and sport hunting (400 on quota a year), oue elephant population has increased from 43000 in 1986 when I started to 84000 last year. That count of 84000 is plus or minius 7.9% at 95% confidence.

If you actually scrutinise the survey strata, the accuracy (rather than precision) is actually greater, because the areas with the higest populations are more intensly sampled and have even tighter confidence limits. It is the couts in the marginal areas that give rise to the wide confidence intervals.

WWF carried out the calculations and put the last survey together here. Parks staff, who are all experienced observers did the actual counting and the pilots were contracted in.

Cannot get much better reliability than that!

Actually now got as many elephant as Buffalo in Zim!!!!!

Ganyana,

We could use you at HuntAmerica also:

http://www.huntamerica.com/wwwthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=UBB5

According to Thompson there is a 5% yearly increase, which if true, would be

(1+0.05)^17[years](43000)=~98,000

Take away all the poaching, the 400/yr. times 17 years, and culling, and 84,000 is still a very respectable increase in population.

May God protect them from poaching and other evil forces!

[ 08-21-2003, 12:00: Message edited by: Will ]

Shikari:

I don't think we are much in disagreement.

My characterization that the "pipeline was nearly empty" refers to the low ebb of mature bulls in many places and the fact that the infant and adolescent males from the period of lowest population are only now beginning to reach maturity.

The issue with elephants (and other wildlife) is still primarily one of habitat. And the problem with habitat is that it has become increasingly isolated by development so that it is difficult for populations in one "island" of habitat to repopulate another "island" of habitat to which it is unconnected. This gives rise to the irony of elephant populations outstripping their habitat in places like Krueger, but being effectivly "endagered" or even extinct in other habitats. Like money, there are plenty of elephants in this world, they're just not distributed very evenly.

Hi Bill

Higest population increase we ever achieved was 4.5%

The problem of big bulls is twofold.
a) very few bulls reach old age unless they break their tusks of have small ones, due to hunting pressure and poaching.
b) We are dealing with a pretty rapidily expanding population and the average elephant in Zimbabwe is still in its teens. Only elephants born in the sixties make for top trophies. Ideally the hunting quots should be set on what the population was 40 years ago rather than what it is now. Sadly when poaching is thrown in that really buggers up the planning, and what is ideal goes out the window.

Elephant tusk shape and growth pattern have changed significantly since 1948 See Dr. D Heath's thesis (should be available in the states. Tusks need to grow downward rather than forward if you want the really big tuskers. Also the number of tuskless animals in the population was increasing rapidly untill they were put on quota six years ago.

With a little bit of wise management those of you under thirty may get to shoot 100+ pounders again. I won't.

Stonecreek,

Yes, I also think we pretty much in agreement. As to population increase percentages, they seem to fluctuate dramatically from area to area. If you remember the TV (Equinox) documentary a few years ago about translocating a herd of Elephants from KNP to Zululand, I have had the pleasure of watching and studying this herd from day 1 of the translocation. They have achieved an average population increase of just over 15% per annum. This seems to be around the same as IDH and others quoted as an average for an area where the Elephants have room to increase.(At least initially) The problem with this kind of translocation is of course that they are translocated to relatively small areas (in this case around 50000 acres) Obviously after a few years (in most cases) they soon begin to run out of home range and have no-where to spread out to. This, in my opinion proves the point that translocations are only a short term answer.

Having said that, the average increase in Zim seems to be around 4.5%.........but I have no idea why, and feel that Ganyana's comments are right on the button.

Maybe we should ask the Elephants why their population increases fluctuate so much!

Interesting thread!

Does anybody know how much it might actually costs to relocate a family group on a per elephant basis? Just curious how much "saving" an ele actually costs...

Regards,

Pete

Is it true that Kruger has an annual cull program for both elephant and buff?I had heard that the Greens tried to relocate those quotas but after a season or two that there were no more takers for the animals.

Crane,

Officially, the KNP stopped culling elephants some years ago and replaced it with a translocation programme...... this has not been terribly successful, especially in the longer term. So there is now a great debate going on as to whether they should resume culling... IMO they need to, but (again IMO) it needs to be done properly. That is to have 2 or 3 cullers on the ground with rifles and taking out entire family units. I'd also like to see the excess Bulls taken out by sport hunting (paying in hard currency)........ but I doubt that will ever happen.

To the best of my knowledge they have never had a culling programme for Buff. They are simply worth too much money. What happens with them is that they are captured and kept in breeding enclosures. When the cows have calves the babies are taken away from mother and hand reared.... this then produces "clean" Buffalo which can be sold for a small fortune. This is why Buff hunting in RSA is so expensive. Trophy fee in RSA often exceed US$10K, whereas a Buff in Tanzania for example is slightly over $1K.

Hope that helps.

The problem with letting nature take it's course is that many other species will die off too due to the loss of vegetation. And not to mention the change in certain species. As the park is denuded of trees and brush(habitat change) some species will die out and open plains type species will increase. A herd reduction program should be in the form of a true culling program. Take out those animals with inferior tusk developement first and leave the big ivory bulls and females alone. In some herds the adults can be shot and the young(darted if necessary) transported to areas where there are no elephants. A large bull can be transported into these new areas later as the young bulls grow up inorder to give them a roll model of sorts to make them behave. Seems in other translocations of young bulls, as they got big some tended to purposely harm other wildlife like rhinos. Then the addition of a mature bull into that area would make them stop their destructive ways.

The "let nature take its course" argument seems to me to be a weak no decision "decision".