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Elephants
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 Zero elephants poached in a year in top Africa wildlife park
JOHANNESBURG — Jun 15, 2019, 8:31 AM ET  *This image is copyright of its original author The AssociaOne of Africa's largest wildlife preserves is marking a year without a single elephant found killed by poachers, which experts call an extraordinary development in an area larger than Switzerland where thousands of the animals have been slaughtered in recent years.
The apparent turnaround in Niassa reserve in a remote region of northern Mozambique comes after the introduction of a rapid intervention police force and more assertive patrolling and response by air, according to the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the reserve with Mozambique's government and several other partners.Monitoring of the vast reserve with aerial surveys and foot patrols remains incomplete and relies on sampling, however. And despite the sign of progress, it could take many years for Niassa's elephant population to rebuild to its former levels even if poaching is kept under control. Aggressive poaching over the years had cut the number of Niassa's elephants from about 12,000 to little over 3,600 in 2016, according to an aerial survey. Anti-poaching strategies from 2015 to 2017 reduced the number killed but the conservation group called the rate still far too high. The new interventions, with Mozambican President Felipe Nyusi personally authorizing the rapid intervention force, have led partners to hope that Niassa's elephants "stand a genuine chance for recovery," the conservation group said. "It is a remarkable achievement," James Bampton, country director with the Wildlife Conservation Society, told The Associated Press. He said he discovered the year free of poaching deaths while going through data. The last time an elephant in the Niassa reserve was recorded killed by a poacher was May 17, 2018, he said. Political will is a key reason for the success, Bampton said, with Mozambique's president keen to see poaching reduced. Bampton acknowledged that the low number of remaining elephants is also a factor in the decline in poaching. A year ago, he estimated that fewer than 2,000 elephants remained in Niassa, though he now says preliminary analysis of data from a survey conducted in October and not yet published indicated that about 4,000 elephants are in the reserve. Still, a year that appears to be free of elephant poaching in the sprawling reserve drew exclamations from some wildlife experts. "It is a major and very important development that poaching has ceased. This represents a major success," George Wittemyer, who chairs the scientific board for the Kenya-based organization Save the Elephants, told the AP. The new rapid intervention police force is an elite unit that is better-armed than the reserve's normal rangers and has "a bit of a reputation of being quite hard," Bampton said, adding that no "bad incidents" have been reported in Niassa. Members of the force are empowered to arrest suspected poachers, put together a case within 72 hours and submit it to the local prosecutor, Bampton said. "Just being caught with a firearm is considered intent to illegal hunting," with a maximum prison sentence of 16 years. Wildlife experts have seen gains elsewhere in Africa against elephant poaching. Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, widely acknowledged as "Ground Zero" for poaching and linked to the Niassa reserve by a wildlife corridor, also has seen a recent decline in the killings. African elephant poaching has declined to pre-2008 levels after reaching a peak in 2011, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. But experts say the rate of annual elephant losses still exceeds the birth rate, and the encroachment of human settlements is reducing the animals' range. Africa's elephant population has plummeted from an estimated several million around 1900 to at least 415,000, according to surveys in recent years. Collaboration and "huge effort" among the Niassa reserve's partners has been crucial but data show that issues remain with other iconic species such as lions, said Rob Harris, country manager for Fauna & Flora International, which supports one of the operators in the reserve. "So the combination of national-level support and on-the-ground effort must be maintained to improve the situation for all wildlife." https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSt...k-63731703  (06-14-2019, 03:45 PM)Spalea Wrote: @Charan Singh : Probably we should have a separate thread for it but main thing is we need to take these issue and find possible solutions. I believe finding the problem and accepting that we have a problem is the first step towards solution. General consensus among all nations have to be formed and already developed nations need to come forward to help developing nations. UN needs to become a governing body and take more responsibility with greater authority - everyone needs to back each other. For me capitalist economy model is hindrance in these actions and in near future (30-50 years) power will shift to certain world leading orgs. insteads of countries if no measures are taken - I'm not in favour of socialism but a conscience driven economy model. (06-15-2019, 06:29 PM)Sully Wrote: Great news and nice photograph with the article! 
Our Blue Planet
This is what an elephant herd supposed to look like. Tsavo, Kenya in the 1950s.  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (06-24-2019, 10:29 PM)Pckts Wrote: Our Blue Planet Goodness me, Jeez! That is freaking impossible for me to imagine such a big herd (for someone born after mid 80's!)
Trophy hunters mostly choose to old Tuskers, especially because of their bigger tusk but study reveals that this phenomenon has far drastic impact on Ellie's population THAN anticipated!
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/07/elephants-older-mating-poaching/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_content=yt20190731-animals-older-elephants-mating&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_rd=&cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=youtube::cmp=editorial::add=yt20190731-animals-older-elephants-mating::urid= Elderly male elephants are the most determined to mate. The discovery could have implications for trophy hunters, who target the biggest and oldest bulls. BY GRANT CURRIN PUBLISHED JULY 2, 2019 Measuring 10 feet tall at the shoulder and weighing over 6 tons, Matt the African savanna elephant is one of the largest land animals on Earth. And though the pachyderm is as old as 52, he still puts an incredible amount of energy into mating. In fact, elderly males like Matt invest much more effort in tracking down and mating with females than do younger male elephants, according to a new study. For about three months a year, Matt—who lives in a population that spans Kenya’s Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves—goes into reproductive overdrive, a state biologists call musth (pronounced “must.”) During musth, middle-aged and elderly male elephants roam the savanna—spending little time eating or resting—to mate with as many females as they can. Females live in matriarchal groups, and males tend to live in separate groups until going into musth. “Musth males are like testosterone machines,” says Lucy Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford who coauthored a new study on the phenomenon. They constantly drip strong-smelling urine, and specialized glands on their cheeks swell and ooze a thick liquid that contains pheromones. African Elephant TYPE: Mammals; DIET: Herbivore; GROUP NAME: Herd; AVERAGE LIFE SPAN IN THE WILD: Up to 70 years; SIZE: Height at the shoulder: 8.2 to 13 feet; WEIGHT: 2.5 to 7 tons; POPULATION TREND: Increasing; IUCN RED LIST STATUS: Vulnerable And it works: “Musth males have a tremendous advantage over non-musth males,” according to Cynthia Moss, founder and director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Males in musth are so attractive to females that almost 80 percent of calves in the same population are sired by them, according to a 2007 study. Even though males can begin mating around age 15, they don’t fall into a regular musth rhythm until they’re about 35. And by age 50, they’re rarin’ to go—an unusual timeline for most mammal species, whose reproduction tends to slow with age. The discovery isn’t just fascinating: It could have major implications for the conservation of the species, which is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Ivory poachers and big game hunters frequently target big, old bulls, and it’s unclear how removing these reproductively active males from the population will impact the mammals' populations, the authors say. "It's well known that bull elephants become more successful in the mating game as they age, but this study shows for the first time we can see just how much of their available energy they put into making this happen," Frank Pope, CEO of Save the Elephants, says by email. "There may be lessons here for aging human males!” An extra boost To track the energy musth males were putting into mating, researchers fit GPS tracking collars on 30 adult bulls of various ages in a study population of about 900 individuals spanning the two national reserves in northern Kenya. The team logged the animals' movements intermittently between 2000 and 2018, tracking their average daily speed to represent the effort put into searching for females. The oldest bulls were the slowest walkers in the study when they were out of musth, but old-timers kicked it into high gear when musth began, and they walked faster than their younger competitors. These 50-somethings also patrolled territories 350 percent larger. “They’re basically conserving all of their energy and then expending it when they go into musth,” says Taylor, whose study was published recently in theJournal of Animal Ecology. Why would older males focus so much on mating? First, since these elephants live into their 70s, females use age as a proxy for fitness as they seek out mates, Moss said. Another factor is “as they grow, the bulls get bigger and bigger and bigger. They get more dominant, and females prefer them,” Taylor said. But even the biggest bulls need an extra boost. “A male still needs to be able to see off his rivals, and musth gives that extra advantage to him when he’s competing for females,” Moss said. Poaching impacts By simply going into musth, a male is advertising to potential mates that he’s lived long enough to do so, Moss says—an impressive feat considering threats such as injuries, drought, and illness. But one thing they haven’t evolved to contend with is hunting, both illegal and legal. Some of the older bulls Taylor’s team had been tracking for her study, for instance, were killed for their ivory in a rash of poaching in 2011. “With the absence of these big dominant males, it’s going to be interesting to see how elephant reproduction changes,” Taylor says. “Is it going to change their reproductive strategies?” Researchers don’t know, but she notes it’s within the power of citizens and governments to keep them from having to figure it out. According to a study published in May, the elephant mortality rate from poaching is declining in response to lower demand for ivory on the international market, among other factors. Regulatory measures, such as Hong Kong’s commitment to close its ivory market by 2021, might also help speed the decline in poaching.
All the animals' cub are cute, but the elephants' babies are often irresistible...
In wild: A captive one: With its mother:    *This image is copyright of its original author African elephant sculpture in Parque Los Caobos in Caracas, Venezuela, it measures 3,40 metres at the shoulder. My daughter is in one picture so you can see it enormous size *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
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