 |
"Long
before it's in the papers"
December 13, 2012
RETURN TO THE WORLD SCIENCE HOME PAGE
Study: elephant fiasco shows moving truck no “panacea” for wildlife troubles
Dec. 13, 2012
Courtesy of
and World
Science staff
Hoping to curb violence between growing human populations and nearby-dwelling elephants, authorities in Sri Lanka have opted for a seemingly simple solution. Move the animals to somewhere nice where they can live out of people’s way.
But they didn’t count on one thing: that huge animals, some of which aren’t very happy with humans in the first place, might just not want to be forcibly relocated. And that this might lead to even more conflicts and killings—an
outcome found in a new study.
Scientists say the findings show that the moving truck, increasingly looked to as a humane “panacea” for wildlife problems, is not that easy answer.
“There are many ongoing translocation projects based on the assumption that this technique is effective, and our joint study is the first comprehensive assessment of whether that’s true,” said Peter Leimgruber, a collaborator in the work and a research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.
“We were stunned that translocation neither solves the conflict nor saves elephants.”
Getting the elephants to their intended new home ranges is not the problem; tranquilizers do wonders in that department. The issue is getting them to stay there.
“Most of these elephants didn’t stay put; they left the relocation area and ventured back into agricultural lands, causing problems,” said Prithiviraj Fernando, a research associate at institute and lead author of a report on the findings, published Dec. 7 in the research journal
PLoS One.
The report notes human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka kills more than 70 humans and 200 Asian elephants every year as hungry or restless
beasts raid crops, break into homes and kill or injure people. Relocation is one of the most common countermeasures, with the pachyderms often moved into national parks.
Using GPS collars, the researchers monitored 12 translocated, adult male elephants and compared their movement and propensity for conflict with 12 males left in their normal home ranges. Before the study, all of the
moved elephants and 10 of the elephants left in their home ranges were considered problem elephants.
“As you track the elephants, you identify with these animals, you see their struggles and understand why they’re doing the things that ultimately get them killed,” Leimgruber said. “But you also understand that elephants represent a serious threat to humans and their livelihood.”
Two of the translocated creatures were killed within the national parks where they were released, and the rest of the elephants left the parks within one to 260 days, the team found. Some of the elephants moved back toward their capture site, they said, while others wandered over large distances and a few settled close to the park where they were released. But nearly all of the translocated elephants were found to be involved in human-elephant conflict after their release, killing five people over the time of the study. Five of the elephants also died within eight months of release. The elephants left in their original home range killed no humans though one was shot
dead itself, the study found.
Human-elephant conflict is a major conservation, socioeconomic and political issue across Asian elephant range in Asia and Africa. It’s also one of the major threats to the survival of Asian elephants, which are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Between 35,000 and 50,000 Asian elephants are left in the wild. Across elephant range hundreds of problem elephants are translocated each year.
The paper’s authors suggest that rather than focus on translocation, land managers and conservationists need to implement land-use plans that minimize crop raiding and create mixed-use zones that both humans and elephants can use, in addition to zones where only one or the other is allowed.
* * *
Send us a comment
on this story, or send
it to a friend
|
||||
|
|
Hoping to curb violence between growing human populations and nearby-dwelling elephants, authorities in Sri Lanka have opted for a seemingly simple solution. Move the animals to somewhere nice where they can live out of people’s way. But they didn’t count on one thing: that huge animals, some of which aren’t very happy with humans in the first place, might just not want to be forcibly relocated. And that this might lead to even more conflicts and killings—as a new study has found. Scientists say the findings show that the moving truck, increasingly looked to as a humane “panacea” for wildlife problems, is not that easy answer. “There are many ongoing translocation projects based on the assumption that this technique is effective, and our joint study is the first comprehensive assessment of whether that’s true,” said Peter Leimgruber, a collaborator in the work and a research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. “We were stunned that translocation neither solves the conflict nor saves elephants.” Getting the elephants to their intended new home ranges is not the problem; tranquilizers do wonders in that department. The issue is getting them to stay there. “Most of these elephants didn’t stay put; they left the relocation area and ventured back into agricultural lands, causing problems,” said Prithiviraj Fernando, a research associate at institute and lead author of a report on the findings, published Dec. 7 in the research journal PLoS One. The report notes human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka kills more than 70 humans and 200 Asian elephants every year as hungry or restless elephants raid crops, break into homes and kill or injure people. Relocation is one of the most common countermeasures, with the pachyderms often moved into national parks. Using GPS collars, the researchers monitored 12 translocated, adult male elephants and compared their movement and propensity for conflict with 12 males left in their normal home ranges. Before the study, all of the translocated elephants and 10 of the elephants left in their home ranges were considered problem elephants. Two of the translocated animals were killed within the national parks where they were released, and the rest of the elephants left the parks within one to 260 days, the team found. Some of the elephants moved back toward their capture site, they said, while others wandered over large distances and a few settled close to the park where they were released. But nearly all of the translocated elephants were found to be involved in human-elephant conflict after their release, killing five people over the time of the study. Five of the elephants also died within eight months of release. The elephants left in their original home range killed no humans though one of the beasts was shot dead, the study found. Human-elephant conflict is a major conservation, socioeconomic and political issue across Asian elephant range in Asia and Africa. It’s also one of the major threats to the survival of Asian elephants, which are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Between 35,000 and 50,000 Asian elephants are left in the wild. Across elephant range hundreds of problem elephants are translocated each year. “As you track the elephants, you identify with these animals, you see their struggles and understand why they’re doing the things that ultimately get them killed,” Leimgruber said. “But you also understand that elephants represent a serious threat to humans and their livelihood.” The paper’s authors suggest that rather than focus on translocation, land managers and conservationists need to implement land-use plans that minimize crop raiding and create mixed-use zones that both humans and elephants can use, in addition to zones where only one or the other is allowed.