In looking at this subject, a critical question has to be asked: are we happy with this continually soaring population of elephants and the continued destruction of the landscape and biodiversity, or are we going to opt for action to ensure the maintenance of greater biodiversity? A simple definition of biodiversity would be ‘the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable’. A component of ‘biodiversity’ is what is known as ‘structural diversity’. Species diversity means that one may have all the species present, but (as in the case of marulas and knob-thorns in some areas of KNP), one no longer has the tall trees upon which so many other species – birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, etc. – depend.

  Elephants are known, at low densities, to be beneficial for biodiversity. They favour concentration in woodland species at low density. As their densities increase they start to benefit biodiversity by dispersing plant seeds and by providing the medium in which the seeds germinate, they knock trees over and provide additional browse for other animals like kudu and impala, and then trees that are killed by elephants provide a refuge and habitats for all different types of animals and insects. They also dig wells in river beds that other animals can benefit from, especially in the dry seasons.

  But, as their numbers grow their density gets to a point on the other side of the bell curve, where they begin to have a negative impact on biodiversity. The habitat biodiversity drops because elephants begin knocking other species out of the system. As a function of their increased high density they move through the habitat and proceed to impoverish the landscape – and with that, there is the resultant transformation or conversion of the system from woodland to grassland over time.

  The result is that there is some eradication of favoured plant species – in the KNPGK trees like the marula and knob-thorn are common casualties. In the eastern Kruger (between lower Sabie and Satara) there are areas where marulas have been totally eradicated – literally wiped out of that landscape. The decimation of knob-thorns has a detrimental effect on the birds that favour those trees, like the Wahlberg and tawny eagles, and white-backed vultures.

  Elephants (both females and bulls) kill trees by ring barking and pushing trees over. Partially ring barked trees are very susceptible to fire and wood borers, which eventually kills the tree, again  affecting eagles, vultures and many other species. There is also a loss of food resources that are supplied by the trees. The visual effects of a high density elephant population can be quite chocking, and can easily be seen when driving through or flying over the scarred landscape – the lack of tall trees, broken trees as far as the eye can see – almost a picture of Armageddon.

  There are many fixed photographic points within the Kruger Park that clearly show the effects of high elephant density over decades. There is evidence of this across southern Africa, so this is not only a KNPGK phenomenon.

  In areas in Africa there has been a drastic decline in species of animals that were common in the now decimated areas of parks – solely as a result of high elephant concentrations. Take for example the Amboseli National Park in Kenya:  giraffe down from 200 to 0, baboons down from 2500 to 300, lesser kudu, bushbuck and gerenuk from being common to non-existent (extirpated) – and the list continues. Then there are the plant species that park officials estimate has declined by 50%! According to park officials this decline is ‘entirely due to the high density of unmanaged populations of elephants’. 

  Do we manage a national park for elephants or do we manage it for biodiversity?

  According to the national Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act the mandate of SANParks is to preserve ecological integrity and to oversee the conservation of South Africa’s biodiversity, landscapes and associated heritage assets. Clearly overseeing biodiversity is an integral part of this mandate, and this is what managers of National Parks are mandated to do. But it seems their hands are tied.

  If managing for elephants is the preferred route, then we have to understand and accept that there will be biodiversity loss, that is an inevitability. But does this by extension mean that biodiversity becomes secondary? It shouldn’t, especially in the KNPGK area that has for more than a century been revered as one of the most biodiverse-rich parks in Africa.

  But if the choice is to manage biodiversity, then in the current situation, something is going to have to be done about the elephants. This is non-negotiable. There are three options that are available to us, all of which have their own pros and cons.

  Elephant management options

  The first management option is translocation – moving the animals to somewhere else. This is a good humane option, it keeps families intact, is ethically and morally very acceptable, and possibly the preferred option.

  The problems with this option is that it is a very expensive exercise and there is a limited market – there is currently little or no demand for elephants. The other issue, with respect to the KNPGK is that if there was the chance of translocation, and based on the number of elephants, the offtake would not be sufficient to bring the numbers down in any meaningful way. The population is simply too large.

  The second option is contraception. Again, this is a good humane option, it keeps families intact, and is also ethically and morally acceptable.

  It is a vaccine (follicular fluid), harvested from pigs ovaries at commercial abattoirs. It is known as porcine zona pellucida vaccine or pZP. It is delivered from a helicopter with a dart. It’s a completely natural process, with really no altering of hormones – the female will come into oestrous, mate but not conceive. Then 15 weeks later the cycle will be repeated. A vaccination booster must also be administered in six weeks. After that it requires annual (or at least biennial) revaccination!

  Over time the herd structure will be changed in terms of the number of calves in the herd – there is no evidence at this stage of what that change would mean to the herd, and how it would affect it. The one problem is that after a while, and with too much contraception, females can become sterile. The other issue is that 75% of breeding females have to be under treatment, just to stabilise the elephant population! This relates to about 40% of the normal elephant population.

  The challenges with the contraception option then are: cost, enough vaccine being available, and the logistics of being able to administer tens of thousands of doses over a short, repeated period of time, to tens of thousands of female individuals – an absolute logistical and costly nightmare!

  But, and here is the caveat, if you manage to cover 100% of the female population, one has to effectively wait for the elephants to die to start to see a decline in the population. Bear in mind that female elephants stay within the herd structure for life, and once born (unless the calf dies somewhere along the line), the female elephant will be with the herd for the next 60 odd years!

  This option will clearly take a very long time. The conclusion then is that this option is just not feasible in very large populations like that found in the KNPGK area, albeit very effective in small populations.

  Side note: the closure of water holes in the Kruger National Park (KNP) – stabilizing the elephant population?

  There is a theory that the closure of manmade water holes and dams in the KNP will lead to the stabilisation of the elephant population in the park. This in theory is due to the food resources around the water points becoming depleted, increasing the distance between food resources and available water. As these distances increase it affects the animals because they need to trek further and further, the animals loose condition, starvation and thirst become a reality, females stop producing milk, calves cannot keep up with the herd and die, and mortality rates increase. Thus the theory is that the herd numbers are stabilized.

  But this theory likely does not apply to the KNP or in fact the KNPGK area because there is more than sufficient naturally occurring water available (a very important point), and food resources are probably, at most, no further than 20km away. Conditions that for example are prevalent in the northern Botswana area, where this theory may find ground, are not prevalent in the KNP. Closing water holes will just mean that elephants will walk to other areas where water is available.

  The food situation in the KNP is also not limiting because the animals do not have to walk very long distances from water to find food. It could in fact be suggested that the closure of water holes could have a much greater impact on other species of animals and not the elephants. So closing the water holes specifically for elephant management in the KNP surely cannot hold any weight – it is far more important to ensure the survival of other antelope species.

  In conclusion, it is unlikely that this strategy will stabilize the elephant population, but it will affect other antelope species.

  The third management option – culling

  The third management option is culling, almost an unspoken word when mentioned in the same breath as elephants – the ugly ‘C’ word, and it is an ugly concept. The one fact that we all cannot ignore, is that over time it has been proven that this management tool has been effective in managing elephant numbers in the KNP.

  The sale of the byproducts can most definitely offset the costs, not to mention the supply of food to bordering communities that may result in a positive effect on reducing poaching and malnourishment – but there are ethical and moral issues around the concept of culling. This is where the heated debate takes place, in part because they are cognitive-sentient animals. This means that they have the capacity to experience feelings and have cognitive abilities, such as awareness and emotional reactions.

  The big question that is asked, is it morally and ethically justifiable to kill these animals? Most conservationists have a great problem with this concept. They do however not ignore the fact that it works. The debate must ask which is morally worse, to cull elephants or to do nothing and allow loses of other species, even the extirpation (local extinction) of species in areas where they have been well known and seen for centuries?

  The answers to this conundrum is and will always be very diverse, and for many different reasons, and it will always be highly morally and ethically charged. We have to really and deeply think about the consequences of too many elephants and our actions going forward, because only we can change the chronicle.

  Increasing population

  1905 was the first record of elephants in the KNP. The first two KNP annual reports reported no elephants in the KNP. Gradually estimates were made and in 1964 the estimate was about 2000 elephants. The first actual census was done in 1967 where the number of elephants was put at surprising 6000!

Culling was then introduced, with the objective to keep the population between 6000 – 8 000 elephants. That was generally maintained through the process of culling, until in 1994 a moratorium on culling was brought in. KNP management were aghast, and the nett result is that in 30 years the population has increased to an estimated 30 – 34 000 elephants today – and it could be much more! There has been talk that the total elephant population within the KNPGK could be as high as 50 000!

  Consider that elephant populations can increase up to 7% per annum, doubling their population every 10 years! That means that on the lower end of 30 000 elephants currently, there will be 60 000 elephants in 10 years. Considering the current devastation of the habitat, what would it look like by then?

  Closed system

  The reality is that the KNPGK is a closed system, there are fences and because of that, it is essential that there be a level of fauna and flora management. Inclusive in that, has to be the management of the elephant population. An open environment would negate this requirement. There are voices that say that the KNP is ‘going back to what it was before humans came on the scene’ – but what was that? We do not know!

  Interestingly, the bushman art in the KNP (well documented) show only three or four sites depicting elephants, which would seem to indicate a relatively low population density of elephants. In honesty, if those pictures were painted today, almost every one would depict elephants! The prevalence of baobabs in northern Kruger, icons that are thousands of years old, would also seem to indicate there were not a lot of elephants in the area in days past. If there were high density populations, it is likely those baobabs would not have survived.

  When the KNP was proclaimed humankind was privileged to have a richly biodiverse area – one of the most richly biodiverse areas in Africa! It is world renowned for that. But are we happy for it to be transformed into a poor biodiverse system just for the sake of elephants?

  There are those that will vociferously state that this makes no sense at all, no one knows how many elephants there were, no one knows what the KNP looked like centuries ago. There is no documentation, books, diaries, painting and the like, that points to any notion that there were teeming herds of elephants in the area hundreds of years ago. What we do know is that there were literally no elephants when the KNP was proclaimed! And now with human encroachment in Africa, we only have national park areas left – closed systems in confined spaces.

  Repercussions

  To slowly bring the elephant population down to an ‘acceptable’ level, one would need to cull in excess of 4 – 5 000 elephants per annum – how will that be achieved? Would that be to try and get elephant levels back to the early 1960’s levels, or to the levels of the 1990’s, around 7 000, which might also be too high. Who knows?

  What is of concern are the repercussions from animal rights organisations and the tourism backlash. That could be massive and seriously detrimental to the area as a whole. There may be a glimmer of some hope in a concept called ‘natural resource management’, where there is a possibility of sustainable harvesting of wildlife as part of a ‘wildlife economy’. But only time will tell.

  The other issue is to try to get publications to qualify and quantify their narrative to show the actual impact that elephants are having in a high density situation, as is currently being experienced in the KNPGK. This may just be too onerous for them. As was overheard once by a very reputable international scientist commenting: “Ethical science? What a novel idea!” This may seem harsh, but in instances is applicable.

  Dilemma

  Of all the options available, it seems that the only one that might work to a degree, is culling. A massive ask. Logistically, how do we deal with this? Some experts believe it has been left too late – the KNPGK is possibly doomed to become a far less rich biodiversity than we have ever known it to be – sad but true. Trees will be a very small part of the landscape. If there is any grass, then grasslands will prevail, and the diversified game will diminish, and it will be done – forever! All for the sake of one species!

  NOTHING is being done NOW! What are our future generations going to say?

  We might need to get people to step away from the concept of self-serving publications, research results, management and statements. It’s not about them, it’s not about funding, it’s not about conforming to the popular trend  – it’s about the elephants and biodiversity, our heritage, our national asset.

  What is needed is the courageous, to make the very hard decisions for the sake of our precious asset – someone, be it individuals or organisations, need to put up their hands and be counted! If they don’t, and if there is no pressure for them to do so, the KNPGK could be in deep trouble in years to come.

  The window for effective action is rapidly closing. The park’s once-vibrant habitats are already showing signs of irreversible harm. If the current trajectory continues, future generations may inherit a landscape vastly different from the thriving wilderness and biodiversity that once existed.

  The bell might well already have tolled!