Et studie af næsten 1000 elefanter i Kenya viser en bekymrende stigning i antallet af dræbte elefanter. De ældre hanelefanter er hårdest ramt, og med deres død forsvinder vigtige erfaringer for resten af elefantflokken.
NAIROBI January 16, 2013 (Save the Elephants): The devastating (ødelæggende) impacts of a recent surge (stigning) in ivory poaching (elfenbens-krybskytteri) have been chronicled (fortalt) in detail by new research on one of Africa’s best-studied elephant populations.
Almost a thousand elephants in Samburu, Northern Kenya, have been closely monitored over the last decade and a half. Over the last four years demand for their tusks (stødtænder) has disrupted (opbrudt) their close-knit (tæt sammenbundne) society.
The illegal killing of elephants is increasing rapidly (hastigt) across the continent as the price of ivory has soared (steget voldsomt). Massacres in Central Africa’s National Parks last year are now being echoed elsewhere in Kenya, including a well-publicised incident in Tsavo National Park on January 4th 2013.
Research conducted by Save the Elephants (STE), a Kenya-based conservation organisation, gives the first detailed analysis of the impacts of illegal killing on a well-studied population. It is published today in the journal PLOS One.
“Unfortunately, illegal killing and related population decline (fald) is increasingly common across Africa, therefore the results from this study are directly relevant to understanding the conservation status of this species (art),” said Dr George Wittemeyer of the University of Colorado and STE, who led the study.
The fate (skæbne) of 509 females and 425 males inside two adjacent (tilstødende) national reserves, Samburu and Buffalo Springs, was studied over 14 years. Elephants roam (bevæger sig) far beyond the safety of the reserves and into danger zones where ivory poachers are active. At the start of the research the population was increasing but in 2009 the poaching of these individually-known elephants began to take its toll. This change gave researchers an unprecedented (enestående) opportunity to investigate the effects of the killing by comparing times of stability with times of strife (strid).
The proportion of elephants that were illegally killed doubled in the last three years of the study. By 2011, 56 per cent were dying at the hands of poachers.
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Older animals – usually those with larger tusks – fared particularly badly. In 2000 there were 38 known males over 30 years old. By 2011 this number had dropped to 12, of whom 7 had grown into the older age class. Almost half of the known females over 30 years old were lost between 2006 and 2011, their number dropping from 59 to 32. While some of this mortality (dødelighed) was due to a severe drought (tørke) that hit the area in 2009-10, at least half is thought to be due to illegal killing.
The wave of killing altered the age structure and age-related social organisation. In 1998 42 per cent of the population was male, but by 2011 the bulls (hannerne) – who bear more ivory – made up only 32 per cent. Ten of the fifty elephant groups were effectively wiped out (udryddet), with no known breeding (fødedygtige) females left, while thirteen had no breeding female over the age of 25.
“This represents the destruction of elephant memory banks, and when these are destroyed the survival of those remaining is lowered,” said Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants.
Læs mere på: http://www.savetheelephants.org/news-reader/items/one-of-africas-best-studied-elephant-populations-reveals-the-disturbing-impacts-of-poaching.html
Begynd fra: ”With the loss of numerous…”
Læs hele undersøgelsen her: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053726.
