Earlier this year 57 Namibian elephants were sold to 3 buyers -- according to National Park Rescue director Mark Hiley, "most of the buyers are from overseas". Does anyone know where these animals may be headed, and whether or not they may be going to zoos (and if so, which ones)?
Usually when AZA or EAZA import elephants they announce it so I would mark the major zoos off the list.
Very true, I had expected as much (although I personally only follow the African elephant population in the US, so I was hoping some European enthusiasts may have heard something about an import somewhere ) Granted, I also didn't know how common wild exports were! CITES shows a minimum of 122 elephants permitted for export into China alone in the last 5-6 years. Still, I'm very interested to try and follow up on these herds. This source says that 42 of the 57 animals to be captured will be exported (I wonder where the 15 remaining animals will go?)
It's been a while but yes, essentially all national parks in Southern Africa are starting to experience some level of elephant overpopulation, especially in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Kruger for example might only have a carrying capacity of 3000-4000 elephants yet its actual population might be somewhere in the 40,000s Hwange in Zimbabwe is in a similar situation. It creates a dilemma as culling such great numbers would undermine conservation efforts in East, Central, and West Africa where Bush and Forest elephant populations are endangered. Yet the longer it is left unchecked the greater the dilemma becomes. Here is a post where I wrote about this subject before in the Australian forums.
And yet they had to take a group of captive bred elephants back to Africa and try and rewild them when they could of let them become part of the EEP program, and instead they could of relocated some of these from over crowded parks from other parts of Africa, where's the logic.
Pardon my french but TF? Elephant overpopulation? Since when? And why not just send them to other parts of Africa? And let nature make its course? There once was a guy of whom name I do not recall, that once said the resolution to pollution in South Africa was to shoot down elephants, are you proposing this? I know elephants have very destructive natures, but 40.000 in a 4.000 area? That's 10 times as much if it was real there would be almost no space left for any other creature in the savannah, also no offence but your whole post feels like a very stretched theory like those of anti-vaxxers or flat earters just to have a couple of elephants in an australian zoo
Elephants are very much overpopulated, Kruger used to cull hundreds of elephants a year, until activists got involved. A good book that really gets into the topic is A Game Ranger Remembers by Bruce Bryden.
A population of 7000 elephants was maintained at Kruger National Park between 1967-1994 (via culling) and even then, there was a loss of 88.5% of trees - one of many indications the carrying capacity was below 7000 elephants. Species like the Great ground hornbill have decreased in numbers as well as a loss of tree-dwelling animals, such as lizards, reptiles, small bird of prey and an overall loss of biodiversity. This article also discusses the issues around alternatives such as administering contraception to cows: KRUGER NATIONAL PARK – ELEPHANT OVER POPULATION - WRSA
Quite a shame indeed, If people only understood the effects that too many elephants have on an environment and that culling is sometimes a necessity! The above mentioned book also mentioned alternative options, but most are not cost-affective and sometimes even less ethical then culling. The culled animals’ meat were usually also canned and spread to local communities / park rangers.
There is not an overpopulation of elephants, this needs to be clarified. There is a shortage of undeveloped land that elephants have left to use. The current wild elephant population is a small fraction of historic levels.
Thanks for bringing this up, it is true. Elephants are only overpopulated in the concerned National Parks / reserves, not in total numbers.
Very true, around 100 years ago there was an estimated 5 million elephants across Africa, so modern populations are very underpopulated by that metric. Saying that almost 65% of the total African Bush population today lives in the nine southern African countries with stable or increasing numbers. That's why many of these countries support the legalization of the ivory trade (something I disagree with), as ivory from excess culled animals could provide money that goes back into the national parks and support surrounding communities, incentivizing them not to encroach on wild areas for grazing. I don't agree with it, as I believe it is too risky but I do understand the reasoning. Also, are you the creator of Serina? If so I love your art mate, keep it up!
Here's another interesting article from a more recent capture of elephants in Namibia: Export of elephants to UAE drags Namibia wildlife policy into the spotlight | Journal of African Elephants The animals are currently visible in a few parks in the United Arab Emirates (Al Ain zoo, Sharjah Safari Park)
This is also a bit of a fluke gathering. At least according to one article: Haunted by A Photograph – Peter Beard’s ‘757’
You can easily have overpopulation in one area while the species as a whole is doing badly. The opposite also frequently happens, a species in general doing well but becomes endangered or extinct in parts of its range (an easy example of that is the cougar). Elephants are mostly restricted to different reserves and game parks now, because of poaching, which means you're taking animals that might normally be spread over a big area and condensing them into a few smaller areas.
I was camping in Tarangire National Park one night and heard gunfire. We asked our guides if those were poachers, and he said they were not. The park could not sustain the number of elephants it held, so the elephants had to leave the park at night to raid the fields of the surrounding farmers. The shots we heard were the farmers trying to scare off the elephants to save their crops. It really blew my mind to realize that even those big national parks that I'd grown up reading about and seeing documentaries about weren't large enough to support viable, sustainable populations of some of the larger mammals.
