Part of the media promotion tours around ranger day

Is it really necessary to immobilise 50 elephants and spend a lot of money, only to get a sample that is of irrelevant size

Humans throwing food out of windows again
http://www.pachydermjournal.org/index.p ... ew/503/410It is difficult to imagine that very
large tusks would be more useful as weapons
or tools than smaller ones, but it may be that
larger tusks are of symbolic value in dominance
skirmishes or displays. Males with larger tusks
might be expected to occupy higher positions
in the hierarchical structure or to be favoured as
mates by females. However work in Amboseli
National Park, Kenya (Moss, 1983; Poole,
1989a) suggests that the phenomenon of ‘musth’
is far more important than body size in determining a
male’s hierarchical position and its success in mating.
The condition of musth is easily recognisable to other
elephants and the position in the social hierarchy of
a male in musth is immediately elevated above all
non-musth males. Even when two large males are
simultaneously in musth, Poole (1989b) found that
the factor determining dominance rank in both musth
and non-musth males was body size. Tusk size is not
mentioned by Moss (1983) or Poole (1989b) as a factor
affecting hierarchical position. The evolutionary reason
why some elephant males have large tusks is therefore
still unclear, and would be an interesting subject for
further research.