- Scientists and conservationists have collaborated to create what is possibly the largest database of GPS-collared elephants.
- The database contains 4 million GPS data points that were collected by collaring 300 African elephants in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, home to the largest population of African elephants in the world.
- Based on the movement of elephants, the team assessed the landscape to identify key areas and corridors for conservation purposes.
- The findings have already been used to identify small-scale movement corridors for elephants in Zambia.
The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before.
“It was like a parallel universe that had opened up,” Naidoo, lead scientist of wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, told Mongabay in a video interview.
Unlocking that universe took a mammoth collaboration that involved collaring 300 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in an area that spans five countries and is home to the largest population of African elephants in the world. The final result is possibly one of the largest databases of GPS-collared elephants. It contains close to 4 million data points that depict elephant movements and identify key connectivity areas and corridors for conservation purposes.
A study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology documented how teams from WWF along with nonprofit organizations such as Ecoexist and Elephant Connection, among others, collaborated on the project, which used data collected over the past 15 years to examine connectivity for elephants. Based on the elephants’ movements, the team assessed landscape connectivity at three scales: a zoomed-in micro perspective, between protected areas as well as across the wider landscape. According to the study, each of these scales represented “a movement process whose maintenance is critical to effectively conserve elephants across the entire landscape.”
African elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are an endangered species that are under threat from poaching, habitat loss and conflict with humans. While elephants and their habitats have been well studied with the help of GPS devices, most research work has typically deployed collars on a smaller number of animals, largely owing to logistical and financial constraints. Data collected from these smaller sample sets were usually then modeled and extrapolated to understand elephant movements over larger areas.
“We were assuming that the small sample of animals that have been tagged are representative of all animals,” Naidoo said. By virtue of tagging a much higher number of elephants in their study, he said, the results were based on “actual observed elephant movements rather than modeled, hypothetical movements.”
It was at a symposium in 2016 that the idea for this study took shape. During discussions, several people involved in studying and conserving elephants realized the void that existed in their ability to understand landscape connectivity for elephants. “We realized, right off the bat, that we can’t get at this question ourselves and that we are going to have to put our heads and our data together,” Naidoo said.
The first course of action was to gather and collate data from existing collaring efforts across the five countries that house the KAZA conservation area: Zambia, Angola, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. “The sample size that we worked with was typically beyond any one research group or institution,” Naidoo said. “What we were able to do was to build trust amongst each other and many of the stakeholders to share their hard-won data.” In addition to the existing projects, the team also deployed new collars on eight elephants in each of the five countries.
Visualizing the gargantuan amount of data turned out to be the next challenge. “When we plotted it on a map, it was just a wall of points,” Naidoo said. “There was no insight we could derive from that.”
The team got around this hurdle by adapting data visualization methods used to map transportation systems. During the analysis process, Naidoo said, they also found that their mapping in one particular area in KAZA aligned with the findings from a previous study that worked to document small-scale movement corridors for elephants. “We were then able to confidently take that as a signal and apply our analysis across the region,” he said.
Naidoo said he was surprised by how there were only very few instances where landscape connectivity at all three scales were considered for conservation purposes. He reiterated the study’s finding that “each scale will require its own set of interrelated conservation interventions.”
The data and findings from the study are already being used to identify micro corridors in the part of the KAZA conservation area that lies in Zambia. Key stakeholders involved in the study also plan to meet later this year to figure out the future course of action.
The Kavango-Zambezi region, Naidoo said, still has large expanses of land that are relatively wild for the elephants to move around in. However, he emphasized the critical need to keep a watch on how the landscape changes in the years to come in response to increasing human population and drastically changing land use patterns.
“The aim is to not only characterize current conditions,” he said, “but to think about how they might look 50 years from now and do what we can to mitigate any possible negative effects coming down the pipeline.”
Banner image: African elephants are the largest land animals on Earth and are an endangered species. Image courtesy of Robin Naidoo/WWF.
Abhishyant Kidangoor is a staff writer at Mongabay. Find him on 𝕏 @AbhishyantPK.
New trackers bring prairie dogs’ little-known underground life to light
Citation:
Naidoo, R., Beytell, P., Brennan, A., Carter, J., Carter, K. D., Chamaillé‐Jammes, S., … Songhurst, A. (2024). Landscape connectivity for African elephants in the world’s largest transfrontier conservation area: A collaborative, multi‐scalar assessment. Journal of Applied Ecology. doi:10.1111/1365-2664.14746
Credits
