This is a very interesting and complicated matter . At first glance , reading a report that states a potential carrying capacity of up to 50 000 elephants sounds quite absurd , but who am I to question it if those numbers were reached through good thorough scientific methods of investigation .
Thinking back , I recall during 1970's and 1980's , the area north of Letaba were considered elephant haven , and driving in those parts , it was quite evident that elephants did lots of damage to plant/trees etc . At that time , ellie numbers were around 7000/8000 , and the abbatoir in Skuks was kept busy due to slaughtering/culling operations .
Culling was totally stopped about 1994 ( ? ) , and it appears that from then on , the environment did indeed start to recover , but , it also went hand-in-hand with increased numbers of elephants
Now , it would appear that when ellies were being culled , to a large extent , they did not really spread around very much , and were probably quite confined to specific areas of grazing etc , which in turn obviously then led to over-utilising of those localised resources , but once culling stopped , then ellies moved around more , and as such , the over-utilised vegetation could recover .
Nature is also wonderful in that aspect .
If you periodically prune a tree very heavily , it often grows back again with increased vigour .
And I can say with confidence that the Kruger today , is in much much better condition than it was in 1980's , and as such of course be able to sustain much larger volumes of biomass .
Have a look at the Elephant management plan for Kruger by clicking on this link :
https://www.sanparks.org/assets/docs/pa ... t-plan.pdf
Very interesting read .
