Elephants dying in Hwange, Zim

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Cumbrian 1

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Article below from the guardian that blames climate change whilst overlooking that when Hwange National Park was established it was envisaged that the park would have a carrying capacity of 8,000 elephants.

There are now over 45,000, the existing water supplies are overly stretched and the dust bowl conditions from overgrazing which simply means deforestation is a large contributing factor, simply more elephants need to be culled:
amp.theguardian.com

More than 160 elephants die in Zimbabwe, with many more at risk

Drought in Hwange national park was the cause of most of the deaths, and wildlife experts fear the climate crisis could make such events look normal
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
 
Unfortunately support from the uneducated masses wouldn't be able to comprehend the benefits of sustainable hunting and culling numbers to improve the quality of the herd overall.
 
nun_hunter said:
Unfortunately support from the uneducated masses wouldn't be able to comprehend the benefits of sustainable hunting and culling numbers to improve the quality of the herd overall.
Click to expand...
I seem to recall the WWF telling us that we were saying goodbye to our oldest friends ?
 
This has little to do with Elephants but everything ti do with man.

Elephants are browsers and need a few hundred Kgs of fresh green leaves most days to keep them going. They amazingly distructive in the feeding habits. They are not designed to stay in one place.

Africa has wet seasons and dry seasons controlled by the inter tropical convergence zone which moves up and down the continent as the sun moves north and south. It’s a band of heavy that lasts a weeks or months and the larger browsers and grazers such as Elephant and Buffalo used to travel freely up and down from the Cape up to the rainforests on the Equator in a seasonal cycle following the lush growth. They are migratory animals.

But man has built fences, huge areas of Agriculture, large bodies of water such as Kariba dam, multi lane highways etc.

So Elephants in places like Hwange have got mo where to move to. In the past they would have moved north to the caprivi, Zambezi corridor and in to Western Zambia up the Kafue or across into Botswana. As they go through the bush they will pluck trees, grasses fruits as they go and a little while later they drop a good pile of seeds with a good dollop of manure. And they cover large distances and often would not return to the same spot for a number of years.

But they can no longer do this. So instead they are forced to eat what they can and this results in huge damage to trees. They have to push trees over to get to the green leaves.

The Trees are an essential part of the bush. They act as a water and nutrient pump, providing shade to grasses and young bushes, along with nutrients from falling leaves and seeds, and through evapotranspiration deep underground water is transported up through the leaves, into the atmosphere where it forms rainclouds to provide rainfall.

Remove the trees you quickly end up with desert.

Culling does help maintain numbers of elephants. But much more importantly they need wild spaces. Pretty much the only economic use of wilds spaces is hunting. Take away the hunting, the land has no economic use so quickly gets turned over to Agriculture. And Agriculture and Elephants don’t fit nicely together.

I can recall my father having to call in the Rhodesian National Parks rangers. He was building major irrigation schemes in Rhodesia’s low veld. Elephants kept coming up from Kruger Ghonerezo and damaging the canals and the wheat. He went out on some of the culls - 50 years later it still fills him with sorrow.

I still remember the game rangers, and one in particular let me help him clean his elephant rifle. I asked if I could go along as well. He said I was a little on the small side. I was about 4 years old at the time!
 
Heym SR20 said:
This has little to do with Elephants but everything ti do with man.

Elephants are browsers and need a few hundred Kgs of fresh green leaves most days to keep them going. They amazingly distructive in the feeding habits. They are not designed to stay in one place.

Africa has wet seasons and dry seasons controlled by the inter tropical convergence zone which moves up and down the continent as the sun moves north and south. It’s a band of heavy that lasts a weeks or months and the larger browsers and grazers such as Elephant and Buffalo used to travel freely up and down from the Cape up to the rainforests on the Equator in a seasonal cycle following the lush growth. They are migratory animals.

But man has built fences, huge areas of Agriculture, large bodies of water such as Kariba dam, multi lane highways etc.

So Elephants in places like Hwange have got mo where to move to. In the past they would have moved north to the caprivi, Zambezi corridor and in to Western Zambia up the Kafue or across into Botswana. As they go through the bush they will pluck trees, grasses fruits as they go and a little while later they drop a good pile of seeds with a good dollop of manure. And they cover large distances and often would not return to the same spot for a number of years.

But they can no longer do this. So instead they are forced to eat what they can and this results in huge damage to trees. They have to push trees over to get to the green leaves.

The Trees are an essential part of the bush. They act as a water and nutrient pump, providing shade to grasses and young bushes, along with nutrients from falling leaves and seeds, and through evapotranspiration deep underground water is transported up through the leaves, into the atmosphere where it forms rainclouds to provide rainfall.

Remove the trees you quickly end up with desert.

Culling does help maintain numbers of elephants. But much more importantly they need wild spaces. Pretty much the only economic use of wilds spaces is hunting. Take away the hunting, the land has no economic use so quickly gets turned over to Agriculture. And Agriculture and Elephants don’t fit nicely together.

I can recall my father having to call in the Rhodesian National Parks rangers. He was building major irrigation schemes in Rhodesia’s low veld. Elephants kept coming up from Kruger Ghonerezo and damaging the canals and the wheat. He went out on some of the culls - 50 years later it still fills him with sorrow.

I still remember the game rangers, and one in particular let me help him clean his elephant rifle. I asked if I could go along as well. He said I was a little on the small side. I was about 4 years old at the time!
Click to expand...
Totally agree with your comment, man has screwed up the natural rythum of these majestic animals and many others. Too many bloody humans!.
 
Cumbrian 1 said:
Article below from the guardian that blames climate change whilst overlooking that when Hwange National Park was established it was envisaged that the park would have a carrying capacity of 8,000 elephants.

There are now over 45,000, the existing water supplies are overly stretched and the dust bowl conditions from overgrazing which simply means deforestation is a large contributing factor, simply more elephants need to be culled:
amp.theguardian.com

More than 160 elephants die in Zimbabwe, with many more at risk

Drought in Hwange national park was the cause of most of the deaths, and wildlife experts fear the climate crisis could make such events look normal
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
Click to expand...

Heym SR20 said:
This has little to do with Elephants but everything ti do with man.

Elephants are browsers and need a few hundred Kgs of fresh green leaves most days to keep them going. They amazingly distructive in the feeding habits. They are not designed to stay in one place.

Africa has wet seasons and dry seasons controlled by the inter tropical convergence zone which moves up and down the continent as the sun moves north and south. It’s a band of heavy that lasts a weeks or months and the larger browsers and grazers such as Elephant and Buffalo used to travel freely up and down from the Cape up to the rainforests on the Equator in a seasonal cycle following the lush growth. They are migratory animals.

But man has built fences, huge areas of Agriculture, large bodies of water such as Kariba dam, multi lane highways etc.

So Elephants in places like Hwange have got mo where to move to. In the past they would have moved north to the caprivi, Zambezi corridor and in to Western Zambia up the Kafue or across into Botswana. As they go through the bush they will pluck trees, grasses fruits as they go and a little while later they drop a good pile of seeds with a good dollop of manure. And they cover large distances and often would not return to the same spot for a number of years.

But they can no longer do this. So instead they are forced to eat what they can and this results in huge damage to trees. They have to push trees over to get to the green leaves.

The Trees are an essential part of the bush. They act as a water and nutrient pump, providing shade to grasses and young bushes, along with nutrients from falling leaves and seeds, and through evapotranspiration deep underground water is transported up through the leaves, into the atmosphere where it forms rainclouds to provide rainfall.

Remove the trees you quickly end up with desert.

Culling does help maintain numbers of elephants. But much more importantly they need wild spaces. Pretty much the only economic use of wilds spaces is hunting. Take away the hunting, the land has no economic use so quickly gets turned over to Agriculture. And Agriculture and Elephants don’t fit nicely together.

I can recall my father having to call in the Rhodesian National Parks rangers. He was building major irrigation schemes in Rhodesia’s low veld. Elephants kept coming up from Kruger Ghonerezo and damaging the canals and the wheat. He went out on some of the culls - 50 years later it still fills him with sorrow.

I still remember the game rangers, and one in particular let me help him clean his elephant rifle. I asked if I could go along as well. He said I was a little on the small side. I was about 4 years old at the time!
Click to expand...

I am currently reading "God Created Man The Hunter", the first volume of six in Ron Thomson's memoirs of his time as a game ranger, hunter and conservationist. They are an excellent read, by the way.

One of his first posts was to Main Camp, Hwange National Park, as a cadet ranger.

Coincidentally I was reading those chapters last night, on a flight back from Sweden. At the time Ron first moved to Hwange it had an estimated population of 3,500 elephants, and they were already talking of the need to cull. Hwange's mukwa trees and mlala palms were identified as being seriously damaged and, although these were just the indicator species, the suspicion was that many top-canopy trees were suffering a similar fate.

Ron Thompson recalls the words of Ted Davison, the founder of Hwange National Park and its first warden: "Fundamentally, the elimination of these trees by elephants tells us that there are too many elephants in Hwange."

If the elephant population is now at 45,000 then it is little wonder that things have reached such a dire state. Unfortunately there will be many, many, more species of flora and fauna that have been irretrievably lost because of the refusal to control the numbers of elephant, and it is unlikely that the ecosystem that originally made Hwange worthy of preservation can now ever be restored.
 
Firstly, I concur with the previous posters.
Secondly, take everything from the Guardian with a mountain of salt.
Thirdly, the problem is largely caused by elephant overpopulation as previous posters have indicated. If the figures quoted are reasonably accurate, there are six times too many elephant in Hwange and very, very severe culling is sorely needed - and I don't mean a couple of hundred or indeed a couple of thousand but at least forty thousand!. Further, as an elephant population increases by 7 % per annum so, it's going to be a lot more than 40 thousand. The enormity of that task is mindboggling. Bonkers. By the way, similar situations pertain in Botswana, Kruger etc.
If you need further insight, read "Mahohboh" or "Elephant "Conservation"" by Ron Thomson
You could also join "The True Green Alliance" set up by Ron Thomson
Peter
 
Interesting to read the backstory, thank you Cumbrian 1, willie_gunn and Heym SR20 for spending the time.
However, would it not be more productive to address the writer or the Guardian? You probably will not get a reply, but you certainly won't get any movement from posting to the converted here on SD! :old:


Thanks again guys.
 
The story may have appeared in the Guardian, but of itself that is no reason to dismiss it. A quick look shows that it came from Zimparks (their principal ecologist is named) and was sent out by Reuters so can be found elsewhere. Culling a few elephants could easily lead to a major campaign against tourism in the country so they may have to tread carefully.
 
willie_gunn said:
I am currently reading "God Created Man The Hunter", the first volume of six in Ron Thomson's memoirs of his time as a game ranger, hunter and conservationist. They are an excellent read, by the way.

One of his first posts was to Main Camp, Hwange National Park, as a cadet ranger.

Coincidentally I was reading those chapters last night, on a flight back from Sweden. At the time Ron first moved to Hwange it had an estimated population of 3,500 elephants, and they were already talking of the need to cull. Hwange's mukwa trees and mlala palms were identified as being seriously damaged and, although these were just the indicator species, the suspicion was that many top-canopy trees were suffering a similar fate.

Ron Thompson recalls the words of Ted Davison, the founder of Hwange National Park and its first warden: "Fundamentally, the elimination of these trees by elephants tells us that there are too many elephants in Hwange."

If the elephant population is now at 45,000 then it is little wonder that things have reached such a dire state. Unfortunately there will be many, many, more species of flora and fauna that have been irretrievably lost because of the refusal to control the numbers of elephant, and it is unlikely that the ecosystem that originally made Hwange worthy of preservation can now ever be restored.
Click to expand...
I was going to recommend Ron Thomson’s books too. They’re a great read and explain the history of this situation nicely.
 
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