Elephant Management and Poaching in African Countries

[Richprins]

I wonder if it isn't algae in the water?

[Lisbeth]

Good news that there have been no new fatalities They are a bit slow with the tests though

[Lisbeth]

CITES silent as Zimbabwe dooms elephants to living hell in China

BY ANDREAS WILSON-SPATH - 12TH AUGUST 2020 - THE DAILY MAVERICK

It’s World Elephant Day, but clearly not in Zimbabwe, where more than 140 young elephants have been ‘harvested’ by running them to exhaustion and then sold to China for human entertainment.

For years, Zimbabwean conservation authorities have flagrantly circumvented, ignored and broken international regulations and ethical objections by capturing elephant calves in the wild and exporting them to Chinese zoos, safari parks and circuses. It’s a cruel and violent practice that has no conservation value, brutalises and kills wild animals and is motivated by purely financial considerations.

The calves are darted with tranquilliser guns from helicopters before being winched into crates and onto trucks while their traumatised herd is dispersed. They are quarantined at a holding facility in Hwange National Park before being flown out of the country on cargo planes.

This is outlined in a new report presented to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) last month. It exposes the extent of this destructive trade and raises the question whether the organisation, which has often been accused of being ineffective in protecting endangered wildlife, will finally take action against Zimbabwe to stop its elephant population from being exploited by a greedy and corrupt political elite.

The report notes that between 2012 and 2019, Zimbabwe has exported more than 140 juvenile elephants ranging in age from under two years to seven years, almost all of them destined for Chinese tourist venues.

During this period, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) has developed harsh methods of “harvesting” young elephants from herds in Hwange.

Eyewitness reports from distraught tourists as well as numerous news exposés and objections from conservation experts and other African countries have done little to stop the practice, with the Zimbabwean government insisting on its right to sell the animals under the principle of “sustainable use” of natural resources.

An animal welfare disaster

From the moment of capture to their long-distance transportation, exporting living elephants involves immense cruelty and suffering that frequently result in injury, illness and death. According to the report, at least 20 Zimbabwean elephants are known to have died in the process.

Photographic and video evidence shows frightened calves being kicked and beaten during capture and quarantine at Hwange. After being denied access to the park’s holding facility in 2019, the Zimbabwe Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ZNSPCA), complained that “the total disregard for animal welfare and the rule of law are a worrying development” and has called for “a full-scale investigation into the conduct of ZimParks and its officers”.

In 2012, only four of eight captured calves appear to have survived the journey to China. In 2015, one animal died during capture, eight are believed to have died in quarantine at Hwange and a further three during transport. The following year, at least three elephants are presumed to have perished.

Elephants are an intelligent and highly social species. Forcibly separating juveniles from their close-knit family units is exceedingly damaging, not only to the emotional well-being and physical development of the abducted youngsters, but also to the social cohesion of the broken herds that are left behind.

“In the wild, calves remain closely bonded to their natal family groups, with females never leaving their families and males only leaving at 12-15 years of age,” explains elephant biologist and wildlife director at Humane Society International/Africa, Audrey Delsink. Some of the calves selected for export are under the age when they are fully weaned from their mothers.

Destination: Hell

For those elephants lucky enough to survive the dangers and stresses of capture and transportation, life in their new homes is seldom worth living. While replicating an environment that bears even a passing resemblance to what they are accustomed to in the wild is impossible in captivity, the majority of the facilities in China don’t even meet the most basic animal welfare standards.

Of the eight calves shipped to China in 2012, only one has survived. He is housed in a “barren, restricted space, without companionship” at the Taiyuan Zoo. Photographs show him to be “emaciated, possibly due to poor nutrition or intense parasites”, with dry, irritated skin.

In 2016, ZimParks and ZNSPCA officials visiting China “expressed concern over the poor treatment and unacceptable facilities” to which Zimbabwean elephants were likely to be exposed. Despite this assessment, 35 elephants were exported during that year with the authorisation of Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment.

The 32 elephants sold last year are kept “separated from each other in barren, indoor cells” and appear to “have undergone inhumane training by mahouts, presumably to prepare them for entertainment use”.

Experts agree that the animals face a bleak future in China.

“There is now abundant evidence that elephants do not and cannot thrive in zoos,” says Peter Stroud, a former curator of the Melbourne Zoo. “They will face a long and very slow process of mental and physiological breakdown, resulting inevitably in chronic physical and mental abnormality, disease and premature death”.

According to Kenya-based elephant behavioural expert Joyce Poole, “for elephants, being held captive for decades in a circus or in the majority of the world’s zoos is gruesome. It’s a fate worse than death.”

‘Demonstrably inhumane’

Many of the details of Zimbabwe’s elephant exports to China remain hidden behind a veil of secrecy and mired in allegations of corruption. The country’s government has used the sales to raise foreign currency and pay international debts under the presidencies of both Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa.

What beggars belief is that Zimbabwe’s ethically reprehensible abuse of its own elephant population has happened under the nose of CITES, the organisation meant to control the trade. While CITES has made some efforts to tighten regulations, Zimbabwe has repeatedly found ways to skirt them.

Since Zimbabwe’s elephants (along with those of Namibia, South Africa and Botswana) are not considered to be endangered, CITES rules allow for live exports under certain conditions. They may only be sold to “appropriate and acceptable destinations”, but Zimbabwe’s own inspectors have shown Chinese facilities do not satisfy this requirement. The report notes that the facility which received 32 elephant calves in 2019 could not provide the necessary care, housing or dietary needs of the animals and argues, “by any reasonable metric, the conditions of the transfer and housing are demonstrably inhumane”.

Scientific evidence indicates that the behavioural and social needs of wild-caught elephants can only be met in captive facilities that are “on the order of tens or, ideally, hundreds of square kilometres” in size and are located “in a climatic zone that allows year-round and 24-hour activity”. The only “appropriate and acceptable destinations” for wild-caught African elephants are found “within the species’ natural and historical range” in Africa.

A further CITES regulation requires that the export of live elephants must promote conservation efforts in their country of origin. Since the removal of calves from herds has severe detrimental impacts on their health and well-being, the exports do the opposite of bolstering elephant conservation in Zimbabwe and should, therefore, be prohibited.

The report details evidence that demonstrates that this cruel business has no conservation value. Exporting a live elephant raises around $40,000 to$60,000 (excluding the cost of capture), while a living elephant in a Zimbabwean national park “has the potential to generate well over $1.5-million through tourism in its lifetime”.

One can only hope that the report pushes CITES to finally enforce its legal mandate and compels it to stop the Zimbabwean government from brutalising its own elephant population.

Original article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... -in-china/

[Lisbeth]

Congo elephant poacher jailed for 30 years; landmark case hailed/size]

By Reuters• 25 August 2020

BRAZZAVILLE, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Congo Republic jailed a notorious poacher for 30 years for ivory trafficking and the attempted murder of park rangers, a conservation group said, hailing the case as a milestone in the fight to hold wildlife criminals to account.

Mobanza Mobembo Gerard, known as Guyvanho, led poaching expeditions in the central African country that may have killed over 500 elephants since around 2008, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

His trial and sentencing last week marked the first criminal conviction of a wildlife trafficker in Congo Republic. Previously, environmental crimes were tried in civil courts and incurred a maximum sentence of five years, it said.

The sentence “sends an extremely strong message that wildlife crime will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted at the highest levels,” WCS regional director Emma Stokes said in a statement on Monday.

Congolese judicial authorities could immediately be reached for comment.

The attempted murder charges against Guyvanho were connected to a 2019 incident when his poacher group allegedly fired at and wounded members of a ranger patrol in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, WCS said.

The park covers 4,000 square kilometers (1,540 sq miles) of northern Congo Republic. Its dense lowland rainforest has been a refuge for the region’s rare forest elephants, which were only confirmed to be a separate species from the larger African savannah elephant in 2010. (Reporting by Christian Elion Writing by Alessandra Prentice; editing by John Stonestreet)

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

Why are elephants dying in Zimbabwe and Botswana?

Posted on September 16, 2020 by Guest Contributor



Originally published in Talking Humanities of the University of London, School of Advanced Study and Africa Sustainable Conservation News

Professor Keith Somerville investigates the mysterious deaths of more than 300 elephants in Zimbabwe and Botswana.

The discovery of the carcasses of 22 elephants near Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe in early September has reactivated concern in the region and among those interested in elephant conservation that we still don’t know what killed 281 elephants in the Seronga district of Botswana’s Okavango Delta between March and June this year.

The Zimbabwe deaths occurred in a relatively restricted area in the Pandamasuwe Forest in western Zimbabwe, between Hwange NP (its largest fully protected conservation area) and Victoria Falls. All the dead elephants were young, under 18 years of age, according to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks). A spokesperson for Zimparks, Tinashe Farawo, told the media that all the elephants still had their tusks, ruling out poaching as a cause of death.

Zimbabwe has a recent history of the use of cyanide by poachers, who poison waterholes used by elephants. He added that there was no evidence that they had been killed by the disease anthrax, which is found in wild ungulates and livestock in southern Africa. Final tests are awaited to find a specific cause of death, though naturally occurring toxins in plants or contaminated water have not been ruled out, nor have so far unidentified bacterial infections.

Zimbabwe has between 80,000 and 86,000 elephants – about 55,000 of them in and around Hwange NP. They are part of the estimated 220,900–240,000 elephants to be found in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, KAZA, which includes regions of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Botswana has the largest elephant population there and in Africa as a whole, with between 130,000 and 150,000, numbers fluctuating as elephants move across the KAZA region to find water and food. Herds move across the region throughout the year, and it is not possible to give a definitive population figure for any one country, as numbers change with the seasons.

The Zimbabwean deaths are worrying but not as extensive as the demise of hundreds of elephants in the northern Okavango Delta earlier this year. These were first reported in May, when the southern African media said that by early July, 400 carcasses of elephants that had died suddenly had been discovered around the Seronga region of the northern Delta. In what is known as the Panhandle – none had their tusks removed, and they did not appear to have died of starvation or thirst.

Poaching using poisons like cyanide and strychnine and anthrax were ruled out by laboratory tests early on. Tests also ruled out the nine most common pesticides and other agricultural chemicals used by farmers, and which have been used to poison wildlife. The environment ministry has also said that Encephalomyocarditis virus, which is an acute viral disease, another possible cause, also has been eliminated as the cause of deaths.

After initial testing in Botswana, samples from the elephants were sent to South Africa, Zimbabwe, the US and Britain for more extensive tests. These confirmed that poison, anthrax, dehydration and starvation could be ruled out. The Botswana Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism (MENT) has said that the original estimates above 375 elephant deaths, reported by the NGO Elephants Without Borders (EWB) was incorrect. EWB and the government have a history of conflict over the conservation, elephant numbers and poaching levels in northern Botswana. It was now known that 281 had died from unexplained causes. Many were found dead on their knees, indicating sudden deaths rather than the long-drawn-out deaths that occur with starvation or lack of water.

The testing of samples outside the region has been slow. The Botswana environment ministry explained this as being a result of the strain placed on testing centres across the world by Covid-19 and its effects on international shipment of samples from the elephants, which has slowed the whole process.

No other carcasses suspected to be linked to the Okavango deaths have been found since July. However, those in Zimbabwe will cause renewed concern about the number of unexplained deaths in the KAZA area. Suspicion, according to the Botswana environment ministry, now centres on potentially lethal naturally-occurring toxins. But an experienced conservationist working in Botswana said a specific cause might not be identified as ‘the chances of definitive identification of a natural toxin are practically zero unless it is one of the known cyanotoxins, and even they are all challenging and expensive to analyse – even in good samples. Rotting elephant is not a good sample.’

Cyanotoxins include cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) which can occur in waterholes and especially after droughts – the region had a three-year drought which ended earlier this year. This toxin has been implicated in the deaths of livestock following droughts. Conservationists hope that these deaths are isolated and are not indicative of a virus that can be transmitted between elephants.

Professor Keith Somerville is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICWS), part of the School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London. He is a Member of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent where he teaches at the Centre for Journalism and is editor of the Africa Sustainable Conservation News website. He is the author of Ivory. Power and Poaching in Africa.

[Lisbeth]

The above is only a summary of what we already know. There are still no answers after almost six months

[Richprins]

Lots of causes ruled out though!

[Klipspringer]

Botswana says toxins in water killed hundreds of elephants

By Reuters• 21 September 2020

GABORONE, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Toxins in water produced by cyanobacteria killed more than 300 elephants in Botswana this year, officials said on Monday, announcing the result of an investigation into the deaths which had baffled and alarmed conservationists.

Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms common in water and sometimes found in soil. Not all produce toxins but scientists say toxic ones are occurring more frequently as climate change drives up global temperatures.

Cyril Taolo, deputy director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, told a news conference the number of dead elephants had risen to 330, from 281 reported in July.

The department’s principal veterinary officer Mmadi Reuben told the news conference: “Our latest tests have detected cyanobacterial neurotoxins to be the cause of deaths. These are bacteria found in water.

“However we have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only and why that area only? We have a number of hypotheses we are investigating.”

Other animals in the Okavango Panhandle region appeared unharmed.

Some cyanobacterial blooms can harm people and animals and scientists are concerned about their potential impact as climate change leads to warmer water temperatures, which many cyanobacteria prefer.

Southern Africa’s temperatures are rising at twice the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“It amounts to having the right conditions, in the right time, in the right place and these species will proliferate,” Patricia Glibert, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who has studied cyanobacteria, told Reuters.

“These conditions are coming together more often, in more places, so we are seeing more of these toxic blooms around the world.”

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, about 25 elephant carcasses were found near the country’s biggest game park and authorities suspect they succumbed to a bacterial infection.

The animals were found with tusks intact, ruling out poaching and deliberate poisoning. Parks authorities believe the elephants could have ingested the bacteria while searching for food. The carcasses were found near water sources.

“We considered the possibility of cyanobacteria but we have no evidence that this is the case here (in Zimbabwe),” said Chris Foggin, a veterinarian at the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust, which tested samples from dead elephants from Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Zimbabwe has sent samples to Britain and is waiting for permits to send samples to two other countries, Foggin said.

Africa’s overall elephant population is declining due to poaching but Botswana, home to almost a third of the continent’s elephants, has seen numbers grow to around 130,000. (Additional reporting by Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe in Harare; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Janet Lawrence)

[Lisbeth]

“However we have many questions still to be answered such as why the elephants only and why that area only?

Very strange