At one point, elephants were on the verge of extinction in some parts of the country because they slaughtered more than 14,500 elephants from 1967 to 1995. Only after intervention by other countries, it banned the practice. Now with the numbers rising they want to resort to mass killing. The guidelines include humane way of killing the elephants - young and old - but how can taking an animal's life be humane?
They could be relocated to other parts of Africa, or the area of habitat could be widened. There is no scientific evidence that elephants are destroying the landscape. When just few months ago, few ecologists in South Africa said that the savannas are starting to disappear because of global warming and that in future thousands of species will likely succumb to climate shifts.
Then why this en masse killing of elephants? Is it to boost their ivory industry? What are your thoughts?
Resources:
S. Africa will kill elephants to control population, animal rights activists threaten boycotts
South Africa to resume killing elephants
Image Source:
Disappearing savannas in South Africa's Kruger National Park are forcing scientists to reconsider what conservation means
2 comments
It's about time. It's been long overdue. Those of us who cherish wilderness and our place in it know that only we have the power to manage wildlife and wilderness areas for the benefit of all species. Besides, you've got your facts all wrong; - and by the way, elephants aren't "someones" as you said; only people are someones. I would advise you to spend some time in the bush, not with the NGOs, activists and academics, but with the people who live there and must make a living there; the farmers, ranchers and hunters.
S.
Hello S,
Its easy to say that its all wrong and not point out at any particular fact.
Now let me tell you about your facts when you talk about elephants not being someones and you being somebody.
1. Elephants are extremly social animals and even have particular kinds of social behaviours.
2. Elephants can recognize marks and their bodies when they look into mirrors and even realize that they are looking at them selves.
3. Some elephants even end up being homosexual, just like how some humans are.
4. I do realize that elephants can cause extreme damage to their habitat by means of the amount of food they require. This does not give you the permission to end up killing them when they are hunted and in certain parts of the world in africa on their way to extinction.
5. Is not hunting the easy way and the cheapest alternative which most governemnts resort to, a bandage solution to a problem when there could be relocation, steralization (which i dont like) imagine you being steralized but its better than being shot in the head now isnt it.
6. The population on earth by humans is increasing we take the animals habitat and shoot them in the heads. I only wish animals had guns to shoot us. If we are the thinking animals we do not think about the long term effects of these solutions that we come up with.
In the end there is going to be nothing left, take a look at the way our climate is changing and the ice caps are melting its only then you will realize that we humans are nothings and when nature stikes back like it has so often we crumble and wonder why these things happen.
Do you not think that killing living things that help maintain energy balances in our ecosystem is going to shif the energy flow in any way. I guess you think it will not because "somethings" like you do not even know they exist.
Heres "something" for you to read from wiki about the social behaviour of elephants maybe it will help you belive they are "somethings" as well. It will also provide facts as to some of the points mentioned above.
Social Behaviour of Elephants:
Elephants live in a structured social order. The social lives of male and female elephants are very different. The females spend their entire lives in tightly knit family groups made up of mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunts. These groups are led by the eldest female, or matriarch. Adult males, on the other hand, live mostly solitary lives.
The social circle of the female elephant does not end with the small family unit. In addition to encountering the local males that live on the fringes of one or more groups, the female's life also involves interaction with other families, clans, and subpopulations. Most immediate family groups range from five to fifteen adults, as well as a number of immature males and females. When a group gets too big, a few of the elder daughters will break off and form their own small group. They remain very aware of which local herds are relatives and which are not.
The life of the adult male is very different. As he gets older, he begins to spend more time at the edge of the herd, gradually going off on his own for hours or days at a time. Eventually, days become weeks, and somewhere around the age of fourteen, the mature male, or bull, sets out from his natal group for good. While males do live primarily solitary lives, they will occasionally form loose associations with other males. These groups are called bachelor herds. The males spend much more time than the females fighting for dominance with each other. Only the most dominant males will be permitted to breed with cycling females. The less dominant ones must wait their turn. It is usually the older bulls, forty to fifty years old, that do most of the breeding.
The dominance battles between males can look very fierce, but typically they inflict very little injury. Most of the bouts are in the form of aggressive displays and bluffs. Ordinarily, the smaller, younger, and less confident animal will back off before any real damage can be done. However, during the breeding season, the battles can get extremely aggressive, and the occasional elephant is injured. During this season, known as musth, a bull will fight with almost any other male it encounters, and it will spend most of its time hovering around the female herds, trying to find a receptive mate.
Self-awareness
Mirror self recognition is a test of self awareness and cognition used in animal studies. A mirror was provided and visible marks were made on the elephant. The elephants investigated these marks, that were visible only via the mirror. The tests also included non-visible marks to rule out the possibility of their using other senses to detect these marks. This shows that elephants recognize the fact that the image in the mirror is their own self and such abilities are considered the basis for empathy, altruism and higher social interactions. This ability had earlier only been demonstrated in humans, apes and Bottlenose Dolphins.
A young elephant in Zimbabwe.
Homosexuality
African as well as Asiatic males will engage in same-sex bonding and mounting. Such encounters are often associated with affectionate interactions, such as kissing, trunk intertwining, and placing trunks in each other's mouths. The encounters are analogous to heterosexual bouts, one male often extending his trunk along the other's back and pushing forward with his tusks to signify his intention to mount. Unlike heterosexual relations, which are always of a fleeting nature, those between males result in a "companionship", consisting of an older individual and one or two younger, attendant males. Same-sex relations are common and frequent in both sexes, with Asiatic elephants in captivity devoting roughly 45% of sexual encounters to same-sex activity.
Communication
Elephants communicate over long distances by producing and receiving low-frequency sound (infrasound), a sub-sonic rumbling, which can travel through the ground farther than sound travels through the air. This can be felt by the sensitive skin of an elephant's feet and trunk, which pick up the resonant vibrations much as the flat skin on the head of a drum. To listen attentively, every member of the herd will lift one foreleg from the ground, and face the source of the sound, or often lay its trunk on the ground. The lifting presumably increases the ground contact and sensitivity of the remaining legs. This ability is thought also to aid their navigation by use of external sources of infrasound. Discovery of this new aspect of elephant social communication and perception came with breakthroughs in audio technology, which can pick up frequencies outside the range of the human ear. Pioneering research in elephant infrasound communication was done by Katy Payne, of the Elephant Listening Project, and is detailed in her book Silent Thunder. Though this research is still in its infancy, it is helping to solve many mysteries, such as how elephants can find distant potential mates, and how social groups are able to coordinate their movements over extensive range.
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