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Africa: Pan-African Elephant Survey Yields Positive Results in Zambia


A recent aerial survey of Zambia’s elephant population shows that anti-poaching efforts are having a positive impact on the country’s national parks. The Zambia Department of National Parks and Wildlife participated in the Great Elephant Survey which included 20 countries across the continent. It was the first pan-African elephant census in 40 years.

The Great Elephant Census was funded by Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. and supported by The Nature Conservancy. It was initially launched in 2013 across Africa where researchers used a standardized method of data collection to create an up-to-date picture of the status of African elephants. The Zambia elephant survey completes the census. It found that elephant numbers are stable in some areas but continued efforts are needed to tackle poaching.

Max Brown, director of conservation for the Nature Conservancy Africa explained that the survey was conducted in a six week period during the dry season across four national park complexes in Zambia.

The aerial survey was conducted over 21 million acres of Zambia that included national parks and game management areas. The focal areas included Kafue and Sioma Ngwezi National Parks and the Luangwa Valley and Lower Zambezi systems.

Brown says the results showed the elephant population was doing better than anticipated.



“There were 21,000 elephants that were counted which is a good result for Zambia. So the carcasses we found were in a sustainable range. So in general it was a positive survey showing that there’s actually a stable elephant population in Zambia across the whole country,” highlighted Brown.

Counting the elephant carcasses and noting the approximate age of those carcasses showed that the deaths were within sustainable levels and the country’s population of elephants was stable, even increasing, corroborating the live elephant counts.

However some areas of concern were noted.

”In one of them the elephants had been hit very hard. It’s right on the Angola border and so there’s been a lot of poaching in that area,” said Brown, who added, “and then another system is actually doing better than expected and yes that’s a result of good anti-poaching work--in the Kafue National Park.

“There’s a group called Game Rangers International that works closely with the Zambian government, and they’ve been very successful at increasing the anti-poaching efforts, hiring village game scouts and doing a good job of protecting and controlling in that park. But it’s not uniform across the country," Brown asserted.

He said the increased enforcement of anti-poaching efforts has raised the importance of prioritizing the protection of elephants. However protection initiatives may need to be intensified in areas where the elephant population is facing more significant threats.

“There needs to be a continual stream of funding still. A lot of these areas are funded through tourism revenue and we need more revenue. It therefore means we need to continue with this anti-poaching effort in the near term while the price of ivory is still high and while the demand is high. In the long term a key issue for elephants is habitat. And so we need to continue to work on all of the conservation efforts and on the community conservation outside of the parks to make sure that these elephants have viable habitat for the future,” Brown explained.

Looking ahead, he said the government of Zambia has indicated that they will launch a working group to determine not only how they can continue to protect the present elephant population but how they can build on their successful initiatives to see the elephant population grow.

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There needs to be a continual stream of funding still. A lot of these areas are funded through tourism revenue and we need more revenue.

Guess where those revenues could come from?

Good result for Zambia.

I wish I could say that positive data and survey results would make a material difference with groups like the USFWS. Unfortunately I am not sure that they do. Since their decisions on elephant and lion were politically driven and not data driven, until the data reaches a point that the decisions of the USFWS could be challenged in court, I would not look for agencies like that to change course. Add to this the fact that when an agency decision is challenged in court, courts give the agency a tremendous amount of deference. Only in cases where the agency acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, or abused its discretion, will the courts likely step in. Typically that is a tough standard to meet since courts are reluctant to substitute their judgment for that of the agency with the supposed expertise. Long way of saying, it is great to see positive data being generated but I would not be looking for any positive action in response to that data from groups like the USFWS any time soon. And court challenges will take years to resolve. Frustrating for sure, but as I said, the decision was never taken on the basis of facts or data to begin with, reversing it based on facts and data is unlikely.

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Originally posted by fairgame:

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There needs to be a continual stream of funding still. A lot of these areas are funded through tourism revenue and we need more revenue.

Guess where those revenues could come from?

Good result for Zambia.

Andrew I thought it was a bit of a dissapointment IMO. Was looking for 30+k with 20k in the Luangwa ecosystem and another 10k between Kafue and Lower Zambezi NP's.

so positive they were impossible to fudge that right there is a bit positive

Well take it. Angola survey results should be next out.

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Originally posted by Safari2:

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Originally posted by fairgame:

quote:

There needs to be a continual stream of funding still. A lot of these areas are funded through tourism revenue and we need more revenue.

Guess where those revenues could come from?

Good result for Zambia.

Andrew I thought it was a bit of a dissapointment IMO. Was looking for 30+k with 20k in the Luangwa ecosystem and another 10k between Kafue and Lower Zambezi NP's.

I did think the numbers were a bit low.

Great news for Zambia . The anti poaching fraternity and conservation organizations have their work cut out to protect these elephant populations. The Zambezi valley is under siege from poachers, reports of between 20-50 elephant being poached every month. This numbers is set to rise, sadly after the "Chiarelli father and son" shooting incident in mana pools national park earlier this month, Zimbabwe parks have suspended all volunteer assistance to the anti poaching efforts. The parks guys just do not have the capacity on their own to make any meaningful contribution to stopping these poachers and the wholesale slaughter taking place in the valley.

We just today heard some senior staff at zim parks head office have tendered their resignations. If something is not done swiftly to sort this out, our wildlife is in huge trouble. A plan of action for urgent intervention has been brought before members of the parks board, for presentation to the minister of environment and tourism. We wait to now see if there is the political will to sort this out.