Studying Elephants - The African Elephant Specialist Group

188 Pages·2002·6.58 MB·English

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EDITED BY KADZO KANGWANA AWF TECHNICAL HANDBOOK SERIES
African Wildlife Foundation
The origination and production of “Studying Elephants” was made possible through funding
from the European Union, through the African Elephant Conservation Coordinating Group.
Additional funds were provided by the African Wildlife Foundation.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors alone and do not imply any opinions whatsoever
on the part of the European Union. The African Wildlife Foundation is fully responsible for the contents of this
book and any omissions or errors are not the responsibility of the European Union.
Edited by Kadzo Kangwana
African Wildlife Foundation Nairobi, Kenya
© Copyright AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
First Published 1996
ISBN: 9966-9915-0-6
Cover Photo by Cynthia Moss: Amboseli elephants, Loxodonta africana,
Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
Graphic design by Jacaranda Designs Limited P.O. Box 76691, Nairobi, Kenya.
Reproduction of this publication for educational or other non-commercial purposes is authorised without prior written
permission from the copyright holder provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of this publication for
resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Typeset in Palatino, Times and Lithos Bold. Printed in Kenya.
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STUDYING ELEPHANTS
Edited by
KADZO KANGWANA
African Wildlife Foundation
Nairobi, Kenya
THE AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION
The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), established in 1961, works towards building the capacity of African
individuals and institutions to manage their natural resources effectively. AWF follows this mission in order to
increase the sustainable contribution of natural resources to local and national economies, and to promote the
sound protection and management of these resources by Africa’s own peoples.
AWF helps build capacity in natural resource management through programme activities in protected area
management, environmental awareness, policy development and implementation, conservation science, support
for species and habitats of prime ecological significance, and community-based approaches to conservation.
AWF’s current portfolio includes four distinct and complementary programme areas, ranging from the traditional
to the innovative. These programmes are:
* Species and Ecosystem Conservation
* Community Conservation
* Training, Institutional Development and Education
* Commerce and Conservation
For further information about the African Wildlife Foundation and its current projects please write to AWF at:
P.O. Box 48177, Nairobi, Kenya or
1717 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036, USA
THE AWF SERIES OF HANDBOOKS
ON TECHNIQUES IN AFRICAN WILDLIFE ECOLOGY
1. Counting Animals. M. Norton-Griffiths. 1978.
2. Measuring the Distribution of Animals in Relation to the Environment. D.
Western and J. J. R. Grimsdell. 1979.
3. Studying Predators. B. C. R. Bertram. 1979.
4. Ecological Monitoring. J. J. R. Grimsdell. 1978.
5. Population Dynamics of Large Mammals. A. R. E. Sinclair and J. J. R.
Grimsdell. 1982.
6. Counting Birds. D. Pomeroy. 1992.
7. Studying Elephants. Editor K. Kangwana. 1996.
If you would like to order a copy of any of the handbooks, please write to:
African Wildlife Foundation,
P.O. Box 48177 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: [phone] Fax: 710372
CONTENTS
Acknowledgement............................................................................................................... i
List of Contributor............................................................................................................... ii
Introduction......................................................................................................................... iii
Chapter 1. The African Elephant
Joyce Poole.......................................................................................................................... 1
SECTION 1: ELEPHANT MANAGEMENT
Chapter 2. Making Management Decisions from Data
Holly Dublin & Russell Taylor ........................................................................................... 10
SECTION 2: COUNTING ELEPHANTS
Chapter 3. Counting Elephants from the Air - Sample Counts
Susan Mbugua..................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 4. Counting Elephants from the Air - Total Counts
lain Douglas-Hamilton........................................................................................................ 28
Chapter 5. Estimating Forest Elephant Abundance by Dung Counts
Richard Barnes.................................................................................................................... 38
Chapter 6. Direct Counts of Elephants from the Ground
Hugo Jachmann................................................................................................................... 49
SECTION 3: STUDYING POPULATIONS
Chapter 7. Getting to know a Population
Cynthia Moss....................................................................................................................... 58
Chapter 8. Studying Elephant Movements
hn Whyte ............................................................................................................................. 75
Chapter 9. Studying Elephant – Habitat Interactions
Keith Lindsay...................................................................................................................... 90
Chapter 10. Studying the Behaviour of Elephants
Phyllis Lee........................................................................................................................... 98
SECTION 4: DEVELOPING RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
Chapter 11. Studying Vocal Communication in Elephants
Karen McComb................................................................................................................... 112
Chapter 12. Satellite Tracking of Elephants
Chris Thouless..................................................................................................................... 120
Chapter 13. Studying the Reproductive Physiology of Elephants
Hamisi Mutinda................................................................................................................... 126
Chapter 14. What We Can Learn from Tusks
Nioroge Ngure..................................................................................................................... 130
SECTION 5: ELEPHANTS IN THEIR HUMAN CONTEXT
Chapter 15. Assessing the Impact of Human-Elephant Interactions
Kadzo Kangwana ................................................................................................................ 138
Chapter 16. Monitoring Law Enforcement and Illegal Activities
Nigel Leader-Williams........................................................................................................ 148
SECTION 6: HANDLING ELEPHANTS
Chapter 17. How to Immobilise Elephants
Chris Thouless..................................................................................................................... 164
Chapter 18. Collecting Data from Dead Elephants
Ian Whyte............................................................................................................................ 171
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The production of this book has been made possible by a grant from the European Union, administered by the
African Elephant Conservation Coordinating Group through the Environment and Development Group (EDG),
and supplementary funds from the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and the AWF/PARCS project.
Early concepts for the book benefitted from the input of Ruth Chunge, Steve Cobb, lain Douglas-Hamilton,
Holly Dublin, Deborah Snelson and Mark Stanley Price.
Very special thanks are due to all authors for agreeing to contribute to the book and donating their time by
accepting minimal fees for writing chapters. Several authors contributed further by reviewing chapters, and for
this AWF is grateful. AWF is also grateful to Deborah Ross for donating the illustrations for Chapter 7.
Special thanks are due to Deborah Snelson for proof-reading all the chapters, and to Chryssee Perry Martin and
Cynthia Moss for copy editing the book.
AWF is grateful to the Endangered Wildlife Trust for organising the translation of “Studying Elephants” into
Portuguese, and to Ursula Taube for translating the book into French.
For support throughout this project, thanks are due to AWF staff both in Washington and Nairobi, and to staff of
the Environment and Development Group whose contributions have been many. Without them “Studying
Elephants” would not have become a reality.
i
CONTRIBUTORS
Richard Barnes Department of Biology 0116, University of California,
San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093-0116, U.S.A.
lain Douglas-Hamilton P.O. Box 54667, Nairobi, Kenya.
Holly T. Dublin WWF Regional Office Eastern Africa,
P.O Box 62440, Nairobi, Kenya.
Nicholas Georgiadis Mpala Ranch
P.O. Box 92, Nanyuki, Kenya.
Hugo Jachmann Luangwa Intergrated Resource Development Project,
P.O. Box 510249, Chipata, Zambia.
Kadzo Kangwana African Wildlife Foundation,
P.O. Box 48177, Nairobi, Kenya.
Nigel Leader-Williams Planning and Assessment for Wildlife Management,
Department of Wildlife, P.O. Box 63150,
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Phyllis C. Lee University of Cambridge, Department of Biological
Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge, U.K
Keith Lindsay Environment and Development Group, 13 St. Giles, Oxford
OXI 3J5, U.K.
Susan Mbugua Department of Resource Surveys and Remote Sensing,
P.O. Box 47146, Nairobi, Kenya.
Karen McComb School of Biological Sciences, Biological Building,
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BNI 9QG, U.K.
Cynthia Moss Amboseli Elephant Research Project, African Wildlife
Foundation, P.O. 48177, Nairobi, Kenya.
Hamisi Mutinda Kenya Wildlife Service, P.0.40241, Nairobi, Kenya.
Nioroge Ngure African Wildlife Foundation,
P.O. Box 48177, Nairobi, Kenya.
Joyce H. Poole P.O. Box 24467, Nairobi, Kenya.
Russell D. Taylor WWF Multispecies Project, P.O. Box 8437, Causeway,
Harare, Zimbabwe.
Chris Thouless II King Edward Street,
Oxford OX1 4HT, U.K.
Ian Whyte National Parks Board, Kruger National Park, Private Bag
X402, Skukuza 1350, South Africa.
ii
INTRODUCTION
Concern for the survival of the African elephant(Loxodonta africana), following the decimation of elephants
through the 1970s and 1980s as a result of poaching for ivory, has led to an increased focus on the conservation
of the species. However, conservation and management of the African elephant can only be done in light of a
good understanding of the elephants themselves - their distribution and density, their movements, behaviour,
impact on their ecosystems, and how they respond to contact with humans at the human-wildlife interface.
This book is a response to the need for better information on the African elephant. It aimed to collect the experience
of biologists working in the field on the African elephant, and to inform protected area staff, research officers and
research students of the principal techniques used in the study of African elephants. The book intends to encourage
protected area and research staff to embark on studies of their own that would contribute to the information
available. It is also recognised that local people are being brought into wildlife management, and encouraged to
manage their own resource. It is hoped that this book will be of use to them in planning and carrying out their
own wildlife inventories.
Ideally, research should be linked to the management objectives of an area, and the techniques used should flow
from stated management objectives. This is not to say that research cannot be done for its own sake, but given the
scarcity of resources suffered by many African protected area authorities, it is important to make the links between
management and research. This book is structured to help the reader make these linkages. Chapter 1 provides an
introduction to the African elephant, describing the elephant, its lifestyle and general ecology. Chapter 2 in
Section 1 focuses on making management decisions from data, and provides a management context within
which to view the rest of the chapters in the book on research techniques. This chapter is followed by Section 2
on counting elephants. Chapter 3 describes how to carry out aerial sample counts. Chapter 4 covers aerial total
counts. Chapter 5 describes how to estimate the abundance of forest elephants, using dung counts and Chapter 6
describes how to count elephants directly from the ground. As you will see in this section, how one counts
elephants depends on a number of factors including the ecology of a region, the kind of estimate required in
terms of accuracy and precision and the resources available to carry out the count.
Section 3 provides a series of chapters on techniques applicable to the study of specific elephant populations.
These include getting to know an elephant population (Chapter 7), studying elephant movements (Chapter 8),
studying elephant-habitat interactions (Chapter 9) and studying the behaviour of elephants (Chapter 10).
Section 4 on developing research techniques describes how studies using modern and technologically advanced
techniques are done. It is unlikely that all protected area staff will have the resources to carry out studies of this
kind, but these chapters are included to give research officers and protected area staff a flavour of modern
elephant research and to make them aware of innovations in elephant research.
Section 5 on elephants in their human context provides information on how to assess the impact of human-
elephant contact both on the elephants and on the humans (Chapter 15), and how to assess the efficacy of our
conservation efforts to protect the species and monitor illegal activities (Chapter 16).
iii
Section 6 on handling elephants provides practical instructions on how to immobilise elephants (Chapter 17) and
how to collect information from dead elephants (Chapter 18).
Written as this book is, by a variety of experts in elephant biology, the chapters vary in style and the depth to
which they cover a topic. All have the advantage of being written by people who practice these techniques
themselves, and should prove useful in guiding someone embarking on his or her own research. Where the
length of the book and consequently that of chapters has not permitted authors to go into great depth on an aspect
of the research, they have pointed the reader in the direction of literature sources on the topic. To meet the needs
of a broad spectrum of protected area authorities with different levels of funding, and research capacities, you
may find that the some of the techniques discussed are beyond your means. Some of the techniques are statistically
complex, while others require a large amount of technologically advanced and expensive equipment. Do not let
this discourage you from pursuing your own elephant research. Several chapters show you that research can
begin with a minimum of a note book and an observant eye, and produce meaningful results.
To maximise the quality, and hence usefulness, of your research start by consulting experts in the field on
technical issues if you have any questions, and find statisticians who can help you with some of the statistically
complex aspects of analysing data. Should you wish to get in touch with anyone working in a particular area of
elephant biology, you can contact the IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group, d/o WWF Regional Office,
Eastern Africa, P.O. Box 62440 Nairobi, Kenya, which will put you in touch with relevant experts.
Every effort has been made to include the widest variety of research areas, both to instruct, and to inform.
However, it is recognised that the topics covered have not fully exhausted the field. Perhaps the next volume will
include any topic that has been left out, and the experience that you the reader gather as you embark on your
elephant research.
iv
CHAPTER 1
THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT
Joyce Poole
P.O. Box 24467
Nairobi, Kenya
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Over the last thirty years literally hundreds of studies formerly, within the last three centuries, Loxodonta
on African elephants (Loxodonta africana) have been africana inhabited all of sub-Saharan Africa in habitats
carried out across the continent. We have learned ranging from tropical and montane forests to open
more about elephants than, perhaps, any other large grasslands, semi-arid bush and desert. In recent years,
undomesticated African mammal, and yet we are just however, the poaching of elephants for ivory and human
beginning to understand their complex lives. population growth and expansion have reduced the
species’ range and numbers drastically, and the majority
Elephants have captured man’s imagination and of remaining elephants exist in small pockets of
respect for thousands of years. In some ways we can protected land isolated by human habitation and
draw close parallels between humans and elephants. development, or in dense forest (United Republic of
Like humans, elephants have the capacity to modify Tanzania 1989).
their habitats dramatically (Laws et al. 1970;
Cumming 1982; Kortlandt 1984; Western 1989), and The African elephant and its close cousin, the Asian
their need for space often brings them into direct elephant (Elephas maximus), are the only species
conflict with expanding human populations surviving in the order Probocidea. Both genera
(Kangwana 1993; Ngure 1993; Kiiru 1994; Thouless originated in sub-Saharan Africa in the early Pleistocene
in press). Elephants, like our own species, are noted (Maglio 1973); Loxondonta remained in Africa, but
for their intelligence, close family ties and social Elephas moved into Asia during the late Pleistocene.
complexity (Moss 1988). In other ways, they remain
mysteriously different. Their uncanny ability to Two subspecies of African elephant are recognised: the
communicate with one another over long distances savanna elephant, Loxodonta africana africana, and the
(Martin 1978), once referred to as ‘extra sensory forest elephant, Loxodonta africana cyclotis. The
perception’ (Rees 1963), is now known to be through savanna elephant is larger than the forest elephant, has
the use of loud sounds below the level of human sparser body hair, more triangular ears that are larger,
hearing (Poole et al. 1988). The African elephant is and thick, curved tusks as opposed to the straighter,
the largest living land mammal with males of the narrower downward pointing tusks of the forest elephant
species weighing up to 6,000kg and standing 3.3m (Lausen & Beckoff 1978). Elephants intermediate
at the shoulder (Laws 1966; Laws & Parker 1968; between the two subspecies are found in hybridisation
Laws 1969; Hanks 1969). With a trunk weighing zones over large areas of Africa where forests and
140kg, an elephant can pick up the tiniest crumb, savannas merge (Western 1986).
push over a mature tree, reassure a baby, pour 12
litres of water into its mouth or detect a smell from This chapter serves to give a general introduction to the
several kilometres away. Their two elongated African elephant. In describing the lifestyle of a species,
incisors composed of ivory have been coveted by it is often convenient to lump all members of the species
humans for hundreds of thousands of years, and ivory together and say, for example, “elephants live in
has played a significant role in the art and culture of families”, “elephants prefer to aggregate”, “elephants
many peoples (Ross 1993). are seasonal breeders”, or”“elephants are browsers”. But
the study of African elephants reveals their social
Elephants once populated the entire continent complexity and flexibility, and their ecological
(Mauny 1956; Douglas-Hamilton 1979) and, adaptability. Simple labels can be very misleading,
1