Wie die Wissenschaft Elefanten retten kann
Scientific research plays a significant role in our animal welfare campaigns.
IFAW conducts scientific investigations into issues affecting wildlife and the
environment, and finds workable solutions that benefit all.
During 1999, IFAW assisted the Kenya Wildlife
Service in conducting aerial counts of elephants and other wildlife in the
15,000-square kilometer (5,792 square mile) Laikipia/Samburu ecosystem. IFAW
supplied three aircraft and pilots to help researchers record the number of live
and dead elephants, group size distribution, and location.
This information will be used as a baseline for the most important elephant populations in Kenya located outside protected areas. KWS also conducted a wildlife count in Tsavo National Park.
Another Kenya-based organization, Save the Elephants, was supplied with 10 GPS tracking collars and telemetry supplies to monitor and record elephant migrations in Burkina Faso and Mali’s Gourma region.
This study will facilitate long-term conservation of these elephants – the last elephant population in the African Sahel – by building on knowledge of habitat parameters and constraints upon elephant survival and reproduction.
In South Africa, IFAW-supported scientist Dr. Anna Whitehouse studied the Addo elephant population for five years. She compiled photographic identification files of each elephant family in the park, then traced the population’s history back to the park’s inception.
The result is a unique 70-year individual-based data set, which has been used to examine the population’s growth and recovery. Dr. Whitehouse also studied the ranging and association patterns of the Addo elephants. And a population genetics study was conducted to determine the impact of inbreeding on genetic variability.
Research continues in the park. At a workshop on Elephant Management in the Eastern Cape Province held in 2002, elephant managers, research scientists and local conservation representatives discussed the genetic management of small elephant populations and behavioral issues associated with maintaining elephants in small conservation areas.
In collaboration with Conservation International, Dr. Whitehouse participated in an aerial survey of Kafue National Park, Zambia’s largest and oldest park, to conduct a census of the elephant population and other large ungulates. Just over 1,030 elephants were counted.
We hope this research will contribute to the conservation and management of the African savanna elephants living in Kafue and the surrounding game management areas.
Since 2001, IFAW has participated in an Elephant Listening Project being conducted by Dr. Katy Payne of the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University.
Using audio recordings of elephant communication – low frequency "infrasounds" that are inaudible to human ears – field biologists have logged over 17,000 elephant calls.
The data are being correlated with video recordings made at a site in Dzanga-Sangha National Park in the Central African Republic, where up to 120 elephants gather each day, so the research team can attribute particular calls to known animals and situations. This information provides important insights into the vocal and behavioral characteristics of forest elephants.
Since forest elephants are hard to see and the forests of West and Central Africa are thought to contain half of all African elephants, this groundbreaking research is vitally important in establishing precise population numbers.
In India, WTI’s Elephant Conservation Project surveys elephant distribution and monitors elephant poaching as well as human/elephant conflict in the Pakhui Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh. Results are being entered into the only national-level elephant mortality database in the country.
An IFAW-funded, full-time field officer compiled five years’ of research in the database and the results were presented at the 2000 CITES Conference to give delegates a better idea of the increasing pressure on Asian elephants from poaching and the ivory trade.
IFAW also supported WTI’s field investigations in 12 consumer and range countries in Asia, which has resulted in a comprehensive poaching and trade study of the Asian elephant.
Through this work, IFAW and WTI are keeping intelligence sources informed and improving enforcement.
This information will be used as a baseline for the most important elephant populations in Kenya located outside protected areas. KWS also conducted a wildlife count in Tsavo National Park.
Another Kenya-based organization, Save the Elephants, was supplied with 10 GPS tracking collars and telemetry supplies to monitor and record elephant migrations in Burkina Faso and Mali’s Gourma region.
This study will facilitate long-term conservation of these elephants – the last elephant population in the African Sahel – by building on knowledge of habitat parameters and constraints upon elephant survival and reproduction.
In South Africa, IFAW-supported scientist Dr. Anna Whitehouse studied the Addo elephant population for five years. She compiled photographic identification files of each elephant family in the park, then traced the population’s history back to the park’s inception.
The result is a unique 70-year individual-based data set, which has been used to examine the population’s growth and recovery. Dr. Whitehouse also studied the ranging and association patterns of the Addo elephants. And a population genetics study was conducted to determine the impact of inbreeding on genetic variability.
Research continues in the park. At a workshop on Elephant Management in the Eastern Cape Province held in 2002, elephant managers, research scientists and local conservation representatives discussed the genetic management of small elephant populations and behavioral issues associated with maintaining elephants in small conservation areas.
In collaboration with Conservation International, Dr. Whitehouse participated in an aerial survey of Kafue National Park, Zambia’s largest and oldest park, to conduct a census of the elephant population and other large ungulates. Just over 1,030 elephants were counted.
We hope this research will contribute to the conservation and management of the African savanna elephants living in Kafue and the surrounding game management areas.
Since 2001, IFAW has participated in an Elephant Listening Project being conducted by Dr. Katy Payne of the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University.
Using audio recordings of elephant communication – low frequency "infrasounds" that are inaudible to human ears – field biologists have logged over 17,000 elephant calls.
The data are being correlated with video recordings made at a site in Dzanga-Sangha National Park in the Central African Republic, where up to 120 elephants gather each day, so the research team can attribute particular calls to known animals and situations. This information provides important insights into the vocal and behavioral characteristics of forest elephants.
Since forest elephants are hard to see and the forests of West and Central Africa are thought to contain half of all African elephants, this groundbreaking research is vitally important in establishing precise population numbers.
In India, WTI’s Elephant Conservation Project surveys elephant distribution and monitors elephant poaching as well as human/elephant conflict in the Pakhui Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh. Results are being entered into the only national-level elephant mortality database in the country.
An IFAW-funded, full-time field officer compiled five years’ of research in the database and the results were presented at the 2000 CITES Conference to give delegates a better idea of the increasing pressure on Asian elephants from poaching and the ivory trade.
IFAW also supported WTI’s field investigations in 12 consumer and range countries in Asia, which has resulted in a comprehensive poaching and trade study of the Asian elephant.
Through this work, IFAW and WTI are keeping intelligence sources informed and improving enforcement.
;)
Photographs can be used to identify elephants just like fingerprints identify humans, according to IFAW-funded scientist Dr. Anna Whitehouse. “Each elephant is easily recognizable through the unique wrinkles and blood vessels in the ears.” Foto © IFAW/ J. Hrusa
