The Human Context of the Amboseli Elephants

Kangwana, Kadzo; Browne-Nuñez, Christine

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226542263.003.0003

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Given their large ranges and long-distance movements (Graham et al, 2009), elephants spend considerable time outside protected areas (Blanc et al, 2007; van Aarde & Jackson, 2007; Kikoti, 2009), where they are more likely to share and compete for space and resources with people. The impacts of elephants outside protected areas include loss of crops and reduced yields, damage to property, death of livestock, and injury (and in some cases death) of people (Thouless, 1994; Ngure, 1995; Kangwana, 1996; Lahm, 1996). These impacts on people and their livelihoods can lead to retaliatory and legal killing of elephants under Problem Animal Control policies (Hoare, 2000, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using camera traps to study the age–sex structure and behaviour of crop-using elephants Loxodonta africana in Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Smit

Pozo

Cusack

et al. 2017

Oryx

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26Crop losses from elephants are one of the primary obstacles to the coexistence of 27 elephants and people and one of the contributing causes to elephant population 28 decline. Understanding if some individuals in an elephant population are more likely 29 to forage on crops, and the temporal patterns of elephant visits to farms, is key to 30 mitigating the negative impacts of elephants on farmers. We used camera traps as a 31 novel technique to study elephant crop foraging behaviour in farmland adjacent to 32 the Udzungwa Mountains National Park in southern Tanzania from October 2010 to 33 August 2014. Camera traps placed on elephant trails into farmland captured 34 elephants on 336 occasions over the four-year study period. We successfully 35 identified individual elephants from camera trap images for 126 of these occasions. 36All individuals detected on the camera traps were independent males, and we 37 identified 48 unique bulls aged between 10 and 29 years. Two-thirds of the bulls 38 identified were detected only once by camera traps over the study period, a pattern 39 that also held during the last year of study when camera trapping effort was 40 continuous. Our findings are consistent with previous studies that found that adult 41 males are more likely to adopt high-risk feeding behaviours such as crop foraging, 42 though young males dispersing from maternal family units also consume crops in 43 Udzungwa. Our study found a large number of occasional crop-users (32 of the 48 44 bulls identified) and a smaller number of repeat crop-users (16 out of 48), suggesting 45 that lethal elimination of crop-using elephants is unlikely to be an effective long-term 46 strategy for reducing crop losses from elephants. 47 48

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using camera traps to study the age–sex structure and behaviour of crop-using elephants Loxodonta africana in Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Smit

Pozo

Cusack

et al. 2017

Oryx

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“…The response of people to elephants similarly varies, most notably in the cultural traditions and familiarity with elephant behavior. In Amboseli Maasai pastoral practices and tolerance of wildlife has fostered coexistence (105), whereas Maasai who have taken up farming and suffer crop raiding have become fearful and intolerant of elephants (106). In the same vein, human activity globally, whether promoting ivory trading for profit, or elephant protection and viewing arising out of modern conservation sensibilities, have become the predominant forces shaping the ecological cascades.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascading effects of elephant-human interactions in a savanna ecosystem and the implications for ecology and conservation

Western

Mose

2021

Preprint

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Our study monitored the changes in elephant numbers, distribution and ecological impact over a fifty-year period as the free-ranging intermingled movements of wildlife and traditional subsistence pastoralists across the Amboseli ecosystem were disrupted by a national park, livestock ranches, farms, settlements and changing lifestyles and economies. Elephants compressed into the national park by poaching and settlement turned woodlands to grassland and shrublands and swamps into short grazing lawns, causing a reduction of plant and herbivore diversity and resilience to extreme events. The results echo the ecological findings of high-density elephant populations in protected areas across eastern and southern Africa. The impact has led to the view of elephants in parks being incompatible with biodiversity and to population control measures. In contrast to Amboseli National Park, we found woody vegetation grew and plant diversity fell in areas abandoned by elephants. We therefore used naturalist and exclosure experiments to determine the density-dependent response of vegetation to elephants. We found plant richness to peak at the park boundary where elephants and livestock jostled spatially, setting up a creative browsing-grazing tension and a patchwork of habitats explaining the plant richness. A review of prehistorical and historical literature lends support to the Amboseli findings that elephants and people, the two dominant keystone species in the savannas, have been intimately entangled prior to the global ivory trade and colonialism. The findings point to the inadequacy of parks for conserving mega herbivores and as ecological baselines. The Amboseli study underlines the significance of space and mobility in expressing the keystone role of elephants, and to community-based conservation as a way to win space and mobility for elephants, alleviate the ecological disruption of compressed populations and minimize population management.

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The Human Context of the Amboseli Elephants

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Using camera traps to study the age–sex structure and behaviour of crop-using elephants Loxodonta africana in Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Using camera traps to study the age–sex structure and behaviour of crop-using elephants Loxodonta africana in Udzungwa Mountains National Park, Tanzania

Cascading effects of elephant-human interactions in a savanna ecosystem and the implications for ecology and conservation

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