Posted on 15 February
2013 | Dr Kate Evans is the director and
founder of Elephants for Africa. She started
her research over a decade ago, looking
at adolescent male elephants in the Okavango
Delta and how they socialise – with an emphasis
on how captive-bred animals would react
in a wild environment. Here she talks about
how complex these beautiful (and emotional)
animals are:
"Elephants have
always been my passion, and growing up the
poaching crisis of the 1970s and 80s had
a massive impact on the journey that my
life would take. Since 2002 I have been
studying the elephants of Botswana, home
to the largest remaining population in the
world. My particular interest is male elephants
and their ecological and social requirements.
The charity Elephants
for Africa was founded in 2007 to support
research and education towards the conservation
of the African elephants, and we have since
expanded to include projects in Ethiopia
and South Africa.
I am shocked, but not
surprised, to find ourselves in the middle
of another poaching crisis, one that is
having massive impact throughout the African
continent. A small trinket or a large extravagant
ornament made of ivory will have had a bloody
start as most ivory these days is illegal;
hacked from the face of a dead or dying
elephant.
Whole herds are being
gunned down, calves and adults alike, left
to rot in the African sun in a pool of blood
to feed humanity’s thirst for ivory.
This mass loss of individuals
leads to the breakdown of family units and
elephant society at large, leaving herds
of leaderless elephants trying to make their
way through their home that has become a
war zone.
I have seen dead elephants,
the bodies of young and old that have died
of natural causes, and I have seen elephants
visit those carcasses and grieve. One young
male I know guarded the dead body of a much
older male for three days, chasing the scavengers
off.
We have to ask ourselves,
what does an elephant do, feel or think
when they come across a whole herd of dead
elephants? Are they aware of who is responsible?
What are the consequences for us humans?
I have come across bush
meat poachers whilst by myself in the field
and slept with a machete under my pillow
in fear of reprisals. Thankfully I’ve never
needed to defend myself, but the rangers
and wardens that are out there in the field
protecting our elephants get my utmost respect.
They show no fear, yet they often come across
poachers better equipped than themselves
and risk their lives daily.
Our researcher in Ethiopia
has seen the devastation first-hand, with
reports of 66 elephants poached in recent
months. With only an estimated 150-250 left
in Babile Elephant Sanctuary, this loss
is devastating – not only to the elephants
but also to the ecology of the area if they
were to lose this keystone species.
A sea of humanity isolates
this population, so if the last elephant
were to die there would be no natural repopulation
– leading to irreversible change within
the system, which would affect the animals
and people that rely on this wilderness
area.
Even Botswana, a safe
haven for wildlife for so long can no longer
escape the bloody tide and more and more
reports of poaching are emerging.
We cannot fully comprehend
the extent of the impact the extinction
of the African elephant will have on the
ecology and economy of Africa, yet this
is where we are heading if we do not stop
the illegal ivory trade. Sign the petition
to ban the ivory trade in Thailand.
