The majestic, intelligent and highly social African Elephants which are earth’s largest land animals, are in peril. In the last few years population of African Elephants declined dramatically due to habitat loss and poaching. After analysing 53 years of population survey data, a new study has found large-scale declines in most populations of both the species of African Elephants– the Savanna (or Bush) elephant and the forest elephant.
Vanishing into Thin Air
Researchers have unveiled the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephants species using data on population surveys conducted at a whopping 475 sites in 37 countries from the year 1964 through 2016. The conclusions about the decline in population of African Elephants were grim: forest elephant numbers decreased by an astonishing 90% while savanna elephant populations fell by an average of 70%. Perhaps most shocking of all, the combined elephant population plunged by 77% on average.
Instead of counting the raw numbers of African elephants, the researchers analysed elephant density in their habitats. This was mainly due to the inconsistency in survey areas over time at majority of the sites. The results showed a clear trend towards smaller populations.
“This paper shows the scale of the declines and how widespread they are across the continent”, said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study. Wittemyer said the research underscores how even creatures as prominent and conspicuous as elephants can rapidly vanish into thin air.
The study published in the journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ also looked at how the population of African elephants declined on the basis of species and region. In the Sahel region of northern Africa, which has been ravaged by warfare, the elephant populations have been nearly wiped out. Eastern and central Africa also experienced declines due to ivory poaching and encroachment of human habitats pushing out the elephants.
The Silver Lining
The study also showcased a silver lining amidst the grim situation as declines in elephant population were not uniform across the continent, with some populations disappearing completely and others showing rapid growth, thanks to conservation efforts. In some areas African Elephants even flourished, offering valuable lessons for future conservation efforts. Some places in southern Africa, especially Botswana, offered rays of hope where the elephants are thriving. These populations have been well-protected and managed sustainably. In southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.
“We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role”, George Wittemyer said. He noted that the context and the solutions at different sites can be quite different, but there are examples where people are effectively managing and protecting these populations. It helps to have a contextually relevant model for elephant conservation, and we’ve got that in a lot of different places, Wittemyer noted.
A Challenging Task
Counting elephants in their habitats is a challenging and resource-intensive process. The spotters had to count savanna elephants from an airplane and forest elephants on foot. Drones aren’t yet capable of the long flights over remote areas necessary to survey elephants, and processing drone imagery is also resource intensive.
Africa is huge and each African country has individual wildlife management policies and political systems. Some places carry out regular surveys, while others don’t. The authors of the study had to use places with solid information to estimate population changes for nearby regions with less data.
Inferring the trends in the population decline of African elephants was also challenging. The study modelled site-level elephant density rather than numbers because the survey area was not constant over time for most survey sites. Co-author of the study Charles Edwards, a research scientist with CEscape consultancy services said that they were able to infer these trends, even in places where the data were extremely poor, in a way that allowed the results from each survey site to be compared. Understanding how and where trends are different across the range of a species is more important for their conservation than an overall change in abundance, which may only reflect change in the largest populations, he said.
What Causes Elephants’ Population Decline?
- Illegal Ivory Trade
Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. The illegal demand for ivory is the biggest driver of elephant poaching. Despite a global CITES ban on international sales of ivory since 1990, tens of thousands of elephants are killed to meet a growing demand for ivory products. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.
- Expanding Human Settlement
Elephants are losing their habitats and ancient migratory routes due to expanding human settlements into their habitat, agricultural development, and the construction of infrastructure such as roads, canals, and fences that fragment their habitat. As a result, human-elephant conflict is rising as more and more elephants come into close contact with humans. This often leads to elephants destroying crops and property, as well as occasional human casualties. These negative interactions can result in the retaliatory killing of elephants.
- Humans-Elephant Conflict
As habitats contract and human populations expand, people and elephants are increasingly coming into contact with each other. Where farms border elephant habitat or cross elephant migration corridors, damage to crops and villages can become commonplace. Human-elephant conflict leads not only to negative interactions and loss of income, property, and lives, but also reduces community tolerance for conserving elephants.
- Deforestation and Forest Degradation
The main factors attributing to deforestation and forest degradation are excessive logging, conversion of forests to large-scale commercial plantations, mineral mining, firewood collection, land encroachment for shifting cultivation, small scale plantations, and human settlements. Commercial logging, plantations for biofuels and extractive industries like logging and mining not only destroy habitat but also open access to remote elephant forests for poachers.
- Displacement of People
Poverty, armed conflict and the displacement of people by civil conflict also add to habitat loss and fragmentation. All of these push elephants into smaller islands of protected areas. According to studies (‘Biodiversity and war: A case study of Mozambique’ and ‘Resource Wars and Conflict Ivory: The impact of civil conflict on elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo—The Case of the Okapi Reserve’) poaching effort has been shown to increase during conflict when combatants use ivory to fund their operations. Researchers have also found an association between years of conflict and declining elephant populations in African protected areas.
The Need to Protect Elephants
The presence of African elephants helps to maintain suitable habitats for many other species. In central African forests, up to 30 percent of tree species may require elephants to help with dispersal and germination. They play a pivotal role in shaping their habitat because of the enormous impact they have on factors ranging from fresh water to forest cover.
George Wittemyer underlined the broader story of decline but emphasized the need to focus on ensuring the long-term stability of elephant species. He noted that this could be achievable in several places, although unfortunately not everywhere. The study’s extensive assessment of African elephants’ declining population offers crucial insights for management decisions like prioritising funding and resources to protect habitats of these magnificent animals. Wittemyer said about the elephants: “Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival.”
The study titled “Survey based inference of continental African elephant decline,” published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also included Kathleen Gobush (University of Washington), Fiona Maisels (Wildlife Conservation Society and University of Stirling), Dave Balfour (Nelson Mandela University), and Russell Taylor (WWF Namibia) as co-authors.