10,000 Elephants to be Killed

[Daisy]

South Africa's parks can only sustain so many elephants and they estimate that they are over the limit by 10,000.

10,000 elephants to die so trees can live
Link to Scotsman Article

FRED BRIDGLAND
IN JOHANNESBURG


THE South African government yesterday began preparing international opinion for a plan to cull as many as 10,000 elephants in a vast national park.

Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the environment minister, said that culling of elephants would begin again in the Kruger Park - one of the biggest and best managed national parks in Africa - for the first time in more than a decade to prevent the world's largest land animal from destroying its trees.

<snip>

The elephant population in the Kruger Park, which is about the size of Israel, has doubled from 7,000 in 1994, when the last cull was held, to 14,000.

The 7,000 figure was that recommended by scientists as a maximum for the park. They said if the population was allowed to climb elephant herds would destroy habitats on which rare antelopes, such as roan, tsessebe, Lichtenstein's hartebeest and Livingstone's suni, and other threatened creatures depend upon for survival.

Four-thousand-year-old 70ft baobab trees and knobthorn trees, the favourite nesting places of martial eagles and vultures, are also being destroyed. Scarce water holes are being monopolised by elephants, to the exclusion of rarer beasts.

<snip>

Between 1967 and 1994, more than 14,000 elephants were "removed" from Kruger by culling and more than 2,000 were relocated to other game reserves. But many of these are now also reaching the point where they have too many of the pachyderms.

At one of the last Kruger culls in the mid-1990s, witnessed by The Scotsman, elephant families of about 20 mothers, aunts and babies were corralled into a small area by a helicopter, from which a game ranger immobilised the adults by firing into them darts containing a muscle-immobilising chemical called scoline and a mix of tranquillisers from a 16-bore shotgun.

On the ground, other rangers dispatched the downed elephants with a single high-velocity bullet behind the ear.

The babies were taken to a boma, or enclosure, with a view to a transfer to other parks. Four hundred females were culled that year plus 70 adult males. The same method will be used when the cull resumes.

Dr Ian Whyte, the Kruger's senior elephant scientist, said: "Elephants have big appetites, with adults consuming on average 170kg [375lb] of vegetation each day.

"It means that in any protected area that has elephants you have two stark choices. You can utilise the area to maintain biodiversity, or else you have a purely elephant sanctuary. You can't have both."

The inevitable outcry about the looming cull disguises South Africa's remarkable achievements in bringing the Kruger elephants back from the brink of extinction.

<snip>

Meanwhile, the domesticated elephants of Thailand must work for their living. Traditionally, they've been loggers and haulers, but deforestation and trucks have forced them to turn to the arts and entertainment for their sustenance.

Nearly everyone has seen elephant perform in circuses, but few people have heard of the painting elephants (link to online gallery), fewer still have heard the musical pachiderms play. "Elephonic Rhapsodies" (link to sample mp3 is the follow-up cd to the original "Thai Elephant Orchestra" (link to samples).

Support the elephants - buy a painting or cd!

 

[LadyEagle]

Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and even mourn the loss of their relatives at elephant graveyards, knowing which bones belong to those of their own.

This isn't about trees. It's about harvesting ivory and making a lot of money from it, IMO.

Greed has no limits.

Elephants Mourning

Ivory Trade

 

[Johnv]

We permit the culling of deer populations via hunting. Is it therefore not a hypicritical double-standard if we denounce the subject of the OP?

We're not talking about an endangered or threatened species of any sort, where is the line to be drawn in order for it not to be a double-standard?

 

[Daisy]

Why not have a double standard - charming animals vs tasty animals?

What to do about horses which are both charming and tasty?

 

[ASLANSPAL]

This is one majestic mammal 10,000 to be culled
should be totally out of the question. Someone needs to think outside the box and find a way to
keep this majestic animal safe guarded.

 

[Johnv]

Based on what, Alsanspal? It is based on subjectivity alone.

I don't have a problem with it, so long as we all recognize that fact that it is based on subjective feelings, and not objectivity. But typically, you'll find people trying to objectively rationalize their subjective feelings on a subjective topic like this, to gird their position.

 

[billwald]

Bring them to the USofA and train them to be police elephants. Much more useful than horses.

 

[webdog]

Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
This is one majestic mammal 10,000 to be culled
should be totally out of the question. Someone needs to think outside the box and find a way to
keep this majestic animal safe guarded.

Isn't the elephant the symbol for the republican party? I would think you would be the one in favor of their slaughter.

 

[ASLANSPAL]

Originally posted by Johnv:
Based on what, Alsanspal? It is based on subjectivity alone.

I don't have a problem with it, so long as we all recognize that fact that it is based on subjective feelings, and not objectivity. But typically, you'll find people trying to objectively rationalize their subjective feelings on a subjective topic like this, to gird their position.

JohnV why? did you subject me to this post.


Reality is, the animal is very admired because
of its bueaty,behaviour, and intelligence. I think
people would want to do the best that they could
to avoid the culling and find as many options
as possible.

What billwald said is a start..instead of not trying to solve the problem and just accept the
culling, is not the way to go...culling should
be a last resort for the African elephant. If
everything was exhausted mind wise,and the law is on the books to cull, then sadly I would
have to accept the culling.

Be careful Webdog elephants are my friends and
they never forget!besides this is an environmental and animal issue so lets not let
PETTYpolitics ruin trying to care for these
majestic mammals.

<a href="http://www.livingwithelephants.org/" target="_blank">Living
with Elephants</a>

 

[rsr]

How's this for thinking outside the box?

DENVER – Lions stalking deer in the stubble of a Nebraska corn field. Elephants trumpeting across Colorado's high plains. Cheetah slouching through the West Texas scrub.

Prominent ecologists are floating an audacious plan that sounds like a "Jumanji" sequel, transplant African wildlife to the Great Plains of North America.

WHERE THE LIONS AND ELEPHANTS ROAM

 

[Johnv]

Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
...culling should be a last resort for the African elephant.

I'm not against culling of the elephants (if I were, I'd be a hypocrite, since I'm not against culling of deer, rabbits, etc). But I can accept the idea that other avenues being explored prior to culling.

However, it must be noted that the overpopulation of elephants, being benefited by the lack of natural predators, is causing a severe ecological imbalance, including heavy habitat destruction. The number of elephant attacks on other animals has also increased. The critically endangered black rhinoceros population is dwindling because of elephant attacks, verging on extinction.

 

[Brother Ian]

Does anybody know how many elephants are in the parks?

 

[Johnv]

There are about 15,000 elephants in the reserve. The reserve is designed to support a population of up to 7,000.

 

[Rocko9]

Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
This is one majestic mammal 10,000 to be culled
should be totally out of the question. Someone needs to think outside the box and find a way to
keep this majestic animal safe guarded.

Couldn't we have these Majesteic animals spayed or neutered. I would be hesitant to volunteer for such an undertaking but certainly this could be an option.

 

[hillclimber]

The South African government is missing a great opportunity in not selling hunting rights. They could reap probably $20K, revenue for each elephant taken, considering the money big game hunters would pay for food housing transportation, etc.

 

[ASLANSPAL]

"each elephant taken" how PC hillclimber why don't
you just come out and say it! each elephant killed.

I thought right wingers were against PC?

Speak it plainly but don't hide behind politcal
correctness with "each animal taken" it is not
as if they are being taken for domestication or workers.

I would not grieve much if some obese big spender
game hunter bagged his elephant with the help
of cheating with guides and technology but that
the majestic elephant with its last dying breath
was to flatten the S.O.Jezebel.

I meant it
Aslanspal

 

[Daisy]

Because elephants travel in family groups, have long lives, long memories and seem grieve their dead, the elephants are to be killed as whole family groups.

One elephant is magnificient. A herd is awesome. But 10,000 elephants is an awful lot of elephants. If they overeat their habitat, then they will face starvation as will the other inhabitants of the reserve.

I favor some kind of birth control over slaughter, if that is feasiable.

 

[hillclimber]

Originally posted by ASLANSPAL:
"each elephant taken" how PC hillclimber why don't
you just come out and say it! each elephant killed.

I thought right wingers were against PC?

Speak it plainly but don't hide behind politcal
correctness with "each animal taken" it is not
as if they are being taken for domestication or workers.

I would not grieve much if some obese big spender
game hunter bagged his elephant with the help
of cheating with guides and technology but that
the majestic elephant with its last dying breath
was to flatten the S.O.Jezebel.

I meant it
Aslanspal

Taken is a perfectly acceptable word to use for this. I don't take well to corrections from you sir, especially in light of the last sentence of your post and the value you place on human life, and each ones dignity.

 

[hillclimber]

By the way AP, you will find few people that are less PC than I.

 

[Rocko9]

Who wants to see elephants being eliminated by culling or by game hunting. I think game hunting in Africa is not as exciting as it used to be and I wouldn't consider it a sport.
Read the article below from a site and this seems to be the only compassionate way to aproach the situation.

www.exn.ca/Stories/ 2000/09/14/57.asp
The birth control pill for elephants
Everyone knows elephants are endangered, usually as a result of poaching. But in South Africa, they have the opposite problem - a plethora of the animals. The large populations wreak havok with farms and damage the vegetation eaten by other wildlife. Attempts to control the elephants by culling have led to protests. But a new discovery could help bring down the elephant population without any culls. Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed a contraceptive for elephants. But the contraceptive is very different from the pill taken by women. Instead of altering the elephant's hormone levels, it tricks the elephant's own immune system into preventing fertilization from taking place. The vaccine requires only a single injection. And if the elephant numbers start to drop again, a second injection can reverse it.