To Cull or Not to Cull

If the park is a synthetic environment created to maintain/contain an elephant population, this becomes an issue of animal husbandry and if it is determined through "scientific facts and principles" that there is a limit to what this synthetic environment can support. than culling would be necessary, in my view.

I have one question: Who would stand to profit from the death of these animals? What is done with the bodies?

The management, culling, sale etc is regulated by national legislation.

The park must produce a culling plan consistent with standards set by the Act and have it approved.

The money earned is used for the upkeep and the running of the park.

If there is no predator-prey relationship to keep the elephant numbers at a sustainable level, then the managers have to cull to maintain a healthy herd and to prevent the destruction of the vegetation which is necessary to the elephants and other life in the area.

336 trees!!! The diversity is fantastic.

I agree that the herd needs to be culled for the same reasons. My problem that there it's just random killing. A predators will usually take out the weak leaving the herd stronger. If the culling could imitate the natural selection done by predators all the better.

If this is a nature preserve where are those predators. They usually maintain the balance. Maybe that should be addressed.

Hendrik reintroduction of the wolf in our western parks here in the USA helped the same problem. It though has its own problems. Maybe look into the studies done on it.

The elephant's only real predator is man. We try to keep them _{that type of man} out of the game parks.

An interesting thing with elephant culling is that there is a swing away from the selective culling (or random) of say the old or week etc and the latest thinking I believe is to take out entire family groups. This keeps the other family groups intact. The family is very important in this somewhat matriarchal society.

We have had much trouble in the Pilanesburg with relocated young bull elephants becoming sexually active too early (this resulted in the deaths of many rhino's). We had to relocate some big Kruger Park bulls in order to slap the young males back into line.

An amazing success story.

Not sure that I would agree with taking out whole family lines. How do you choose which family and on what grounds?

Are there other parts of the continent that the surplus could be moved to? Areas that the their numbers could help in restoring the species to a park?

At one point in time, the Florida alligator was on the endangered species list. Through conservation efforts, the gator has made a wonderful comeback. In the last 2 years, controlled alligator hunts have been established. Heavy licencing fees, and very limited hunting season.

Establishing controlled hunting trips could help thin the herds, and provide additional funds for additional expansion of the park program.

I would think that culling whole family groups would be a big mistake from a genetic standpoint. You want to conserve genetic diversity, not remove specific lines.

They have to follow rules and guidelines.

The first target is the old grumpy lone bulls. (they bring down trees for the fun)

They are also not allowed to cull in a group containing juvenile's.

The park is about 200 km (almost 2 deg) from top to bottom. almost 2 million ha.

Is there no one that would accept young elephants?

They are allowed and do sell them to other and private game reserves.

One problem is that an elephant require some 150kg of food and up to 200 litre of water (drinking and cooling) per day.

There are under-the-skin implants for human birth control. Is such a thing available for elephants that could be injected from a distance?

I just knew someone was going to mention that pesky problem. Where are all the brave volunteer tree-hugger types when we need them?

I imagine that it is hard to get the elephants to wear them... not having opposing thumbs.

Hi Hendrik, Interesting subject and I see some very informed replies. It is obvious that both yourself and one of the posters (who wrote about problems in the Pilanesberg Park) have considerable knowledge regarding Elephants and game management in general. Having spent a long time in the National Parks and game reserves in Zambia and also in the Lower Zambesi area I really got to know the Elephants and there is a very soft spot in my heart for the predicament in which the Elephant now finds itself. No I am not just another bunny hugger but tend to look at the problems being faced in proper management of the game plus the fauna. One only has to see what happened in the South Luangwa where the excessive Elephant population destroyed so many trees that it looked as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped there. On another site we are discussing the threat to the Great White Sharks but there is a common thread here - I believe strongly that much more thought has got to go into resolving the problems of management. I find it very concerning that the main solution being punted in relation to Elephant overpopulation is still culling. Yes , I know that something has to be done fairly urgently to address the problem and that when culling, taking out complete family groups is the 'correct' way of doing things but believe that perhaps we need to be researching more sustainable methods of management. I know that birth control (not by condoms as suggested) was quite high on the list but wonder if you can enlighten us as to what other methods besides culling are in the pipeline. What we are basically looking at here is man having upset nature in the first place, be it by now using the land for agriculture or other reasons, now normally tries to rectify the problem by a 'knee jerk' reaction. When we take this attitude we end up with a temporary solution to one problem and cause a host of other problems. Like I have said, this problem is not only restricted to the Elephants although they are in focus at the moment. Looking forward to seeing more very interesting posts from you on this subject.

As mentioned previously, population control needs considerable more thought than just culling.

Culling however is the more economical choice as the animals are processed and the byproducts sold to defray expenses and then theres the ivory. Many are those in authority that would like to manipulate ivory and its proceeds. It's strange how governments get involved with ivory control but have no interest in the shoebill, wild dog etc.

In Kruger Park, South Africa the control is still relatively transparent; Other countries further north not so.

The quantity of Culled elephant ivory for sale seems to some how increase when there is talk of legalising ivory trade. Responsible countries use this opportunity to have the Parks benefit from the sale of ivory; with others the proceeds end up in government coffers to be utilised elsewhere. Some years ago the Kenyan government openly burnt tons of ivory to denounce ivory trade... and today theres a different government.

Culling also threatens the ever decreasing genetic pool, this can be noted in Luangwa Valley, Zambia where due to years of trophy hunting some elephants are smaller in size with toothpicks for tusks and walk through the hotel lobby to get to the Marula trees within the premises of the hotel. At 10foot, normal elephants are too tall. 400miles further west in the Kafue park the elephant however are more normal and readily stand their ground if felt threatened.

Unfortunately elephant are extremely intelligent with a sophisticated social structure that is finely balanced. Changing the ratio of elders to adults to teenagers to infants results in negative side effects (just like humans) and can be seen by the reduction in the rhino population to name one.

Despite having tightly knit family units, elephants often migrate great distances as a herd or individually and will become members of other herds temporarily, the females almost always hang out in herds but the mature males will come and go where his "must" status will allow him access, so culling does not efficiently remove the entire family unit and "scars" will remain no matter how.

Trans-location would seem the more humane and productive answer, but trans-locating 13000lbs of dead weight with an attitude is not easy or cheap. There is also the issue of knowing who the trans-located elephants are being sold/donated to and what they really intend to do with them. A responsibility develops to monitor and protect the trans-located animal thereafter, parks and zoos have limited funds that only go so far.

Darting the females with birth control cocktails is still in it's infancy although practised for some years now with limited success and again it changes the balance of the population with yet undetermined results. the implementation and follow up cost is also prohibitive

Over population quickly destroys the bush which takes years (if the elephants are reduced) to recover and during the recovery period the population capacity of the bush is greatly reduced with dire effect on other species. with the elephants hang every thing else in their environment and one wonders how much longer they have.