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Congo forest elephants declining from logging roads, illegal ivory Rhettt A. Butler, mongabay.com April 1, 2007
"Unmanaged roads are highways of death for forest elephants," said Wildlife Conservation Society biologist Dr. Stephen Blake, the study's lead author. "It is not the physical effect of the road that is the issue — forest elephants actually like roadside vegetation — rather it is the fact that unmanaged roads bring people, with their guns and ammunition. They also become direct pipelines into pristine forest areas for both human settlement and distant bushmeat markets." Walking over 6000 kilometers (3,700 miles) in five countries, and covering more than 68,000 square kilometers (26,000 square miles) in systematic surveys, a team of researchers found that elephant abundance declined near roadways, largely the result of heavy poaching for the ivory trade. Despite international laws regulating ivory, the trade has expanded in recent years due to rising demand from China.
"The encounter rate of poached elephant carcasses decreased with distance from the nearest road... and no poached carcasses were found beyond 45 km of a road," they wrote. The researchers said that while the effects of roads were evident in national park areas, protected areas appeared to reduce the overall amount of poaching. The results suggest that steps to minimize road construction while at the same time setting aside more protected areas could be a good stategy to protect the increasingly threatened forest elephant. "Our results indicate that a combination of illegal killing and other human disturbance has had a profound impact on forest elephant abundance and distribution, including inside national parks (NPs)," they wrote. "[But] Megatransect data suggest strongly that NPs and protected areas are making a positive contribution to conservation because at any given distance from the nearest road, protected areas have (1) lower incidence of human sign, and (2) higher incidence of forest elephant sign than nonprotected forest, at least in Congo and Gabon."
The authors say the while savanna elephant populations appear to be on the upswing, the case is very different for forest elephants, which are smaller, have shorter straighter tusks, and are confined to the dark recesses of tropical forests in West and Central Africa. "Even with a near-universal ban of the trade in ivory in place, forest elephant range and numbers are in serious decline," they wrote. "This is in contrast to much of the recent literature on "the African elephant" that indicates generally stable or increasing populations in Eastern and Southern Africa, and in some cases, dramatic population growth and a "return of the giants." "The decline of the ecologically, socially, morphologically, and genetically distinct forest elephant... has profound implications for the diversity and resilience of the African elephant. Given their vulnerability compared to savannah elephants, the wellbeing of forest elephants must be given priority when making decisions about elephant management on the continental scale." "In African savannahs, both elephant populations and illegal killing can often be monitored through aerial surveys, whereas elephant massacres in the depths of the forest can remain undetected," added Dr. Blake. "The funding for elephant management in central Africa is much smaller by comparison to those that are available in other regions such as South Africa, where elephants can be adequately protected."
Citation: Blake S, Strindberg S, Boudjan P, Makombo C, Bila-Isia I, et al. (2007) Forest elephant crisis in the Congo Basin. PLoS Biol 5(4): e111. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050111 Related When elephants attack. Surviving an elephant charge in the Congo rainforest of Gabon. Slightly smaller than their more familiar relative, the savanna elephant, forest elephants are generally shy animals confined to the dark recesses of tropical forests in West and Central Africa. Here in Loango, where forest is interspersed with savanna, these pachyderms sometimes appear in plain sight as they move across grassy zones and swampy meadows. However, at the first hint of danger, they move back into the protective cover of the forest where they blend surprisingly well into the shadows. Comments? News options Liquid error: Template not found languages/english/includes/x/_99.liquid SHARE THIS ARTICLE:
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