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Down To Earth

In the last 40 years, Western and Central African elephant populations have declined 50%



According to a new survey
, elephants have declined by 50 percent or more in the last 40 years despite protection in the savannas in West and Central Africa. More alarming is that populations have become highly fragmented, with several far below the limit of what is thought to be sustainable.

Treehugger reports researchers estimate an elephant population of 7,750 across the Sudano-Sahelian zone. This area of savanna stretches across the continent just below the Sahara desert. 

23 populations studied had fewer than 200 individual which is the benchmark for a sustainable elephant community.
 

From Treehugger:

Perhaps most alarming is that the survey only looked at elephants in protected areas. Civil conflicts and poaching were identified as key contributors to the decline but the greatest threats, researchers said, were declining rainfall and and increasing competition with livestock for land and water resources.

The loss of elephants in the region would impact numerous other species because the are important curators of the savanna habitat, responsible for clearing areas through grazing and trampling and also distributing seeds.

To preserve the remaining elephants, researchers suggest that wildlife corridors must be constructed to connect the small, fragmented populations.


It's tragic - in Liberia, they've lost 95 percent of their elephants to poachers. Humans and elephants are not so different, after all. There was a study that found communication amongst members of a herd is quite complex, bearing many similarities to a number of human tendencies and non-verbal cues. Close observations revealed social relationships between elephants like our own."It's wonderful to watch and a real process of negotiation," the book's co-editor, Phyllis Lee, told the Daily Mail:

The results of the study, outlined in the new book The Amboseli Elephants, cite a number of elephant behaviors that most people could relate to -- such as a tendency for herds to 'debate' which direction to go before heading out on a trek. "It's wonderful to watch and a real process of negotiation," the book's co-editor, Phyllis Lee, tells the Daily Mail. The study provides further evidence for elephants' capacity for empathy. They have long been known to display human traits such as grief, but the research shows they may also wince at each other's pain. In one example, when a young elephant approached an electric fence, an older female 'looked alarmed, waiting for it to get zapped', said Cynthia Moss, who founded the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in 1972. Miss Moss told New Scientist magazine: 'Her posture and blinking eyes showed she was wincing.'



Down To Earth

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