• Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Elephant kills its hunter
    129 replies, posted
I've watched too much Discovery and Animal Planet as a kid to ever think of confronting an elephant in the wild, in [b]mating season[/b]. I don't think hunting can get any more dangerous than that.
The number of scientific and factual errors in this thread are astonishing even for Facepunch. [QUOTE=Deng;47562155]Well elephants can be actually rather dangerous and are difficult to control, so sometimes people have to shoot elephants to stop them causing bigger problems down the road.[/QUOTE] No, they are not difficult to control. [url=news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071009-elephants-bees.html]Audio recordings of bees buzzing are enough to scare them away.[/url] Real beehives can be used as well as barriers to prevent them from wandering into crop areas and towns. [QUOTE=deadoon;47562226]Ok, we're an invasive species? What are we going to do about it, kill ourselves? We can manage our resources both current and future to a reasonable extent. An animal without long term planning will overgraze and destroy it's food sources, then proceed to starve to death if there is not a population control mechanism in place. That mechanism is usually predators, Humans destroyed many predator populations and thus are having to step up to the plate in many areas and cull overpopulated areas. We developed tools that allowed us to act beyond our place in a food chain and eventually act outside it and manipulate it intentionally or not.[/QUOTE] Yeah, we do need long-term solutions, to both their population problems as well as our own. But culling is not an effective long-term solution nor a particularly effective short-term solution at that. [url=www.bornfree.org.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/files/factsheets/OwenSmith_et_al_2006._Ele_round_table_sajsci_102_9_.pdf]Culling actually increases the birth rate amongst African elephants as they work to make up for their lost numbers.[/url] So in the long-term picture, the overpopulation problem actually becomes worse. And to say there exists an overpopulation problem with these animals and that they're not endangered is disingenuous in the first place. Both species of African elephants, forest elephants and bush elephants, are endangered and have been since the 1980s and 1990s thanks to poaching and logging activities; they are still endangered today, it's just that some areas have larger populations than others do. Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, they are both supposed to be protected as such. But the extent of protection varies. Actually, the decision to continue culling despite the amount of scientific evidence showing that it doesn't work is thanks to economics. Ivory from culled elephants still makes its way onto the international market as a by-product; actually, Zimbabwe, the country where this particular incident occurred, shipped (along with dispicably South Africa and two other countries) more than a hundred tons of ivory to Asian markets back in 2008, much of which was legally taken from culled elephants, which unfortunately for a time increased the demand for ivory and led to an increase in poaching activities. Zimbabwe, Nambia, and Tanzania among others are notorious for trying to exploit legal loopholes and take advantage of what flexibility regulatory restrictions on the trade allow to the furthest extent they can. But that's to be expected when they're making a boatload of money in the process. Truthfully, all this talk about so much of this money making its way back into the park systems in these countries is a bunch of bullshit. Some does of course, it has to, but for instance in Zimbabwe's case, corruption ensures a lot of it also gets pocketed along the way-- but that's to be expected when your nation is run by the likes of Robert Mugabe and his regime. [editline]20 April 2015[/editline] Fuck it, the amount of energy it takes to explain this shit thoroughly isn't worth it anymore. Gist is: culling is not a solution, it/legal hunting are economic decisions on the part of African nations which allow such practices-- not environmental ones, both species of African elephants (bush elephants and forest elephants) are endangered and are recognized as such by the Washington Convention (CITES, the one I talked about earlier), and the reason why these animals are becoming more aggressive towards people in the first place is because there's so damn many of us and we're encroaching on their territory in the first place. People have been responsible for the majority of these types of ecological crises, but that's hardly surprising. Doesn't matter though. People will believe what they want to believe.
[QUOTE=Govna;47563305] [url=www.bornfree.org.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/files/factsheets/OwenSmith_et_al_2006._Ele_round_table_sajsci_102_9_.pdf]Culling actually increases the birth rate amongst African elephants as they work to make up for their lost numbers.[/url] So in the long-term picture, the overpopulation problem actually becomes worse.[/QUOTE] i may have missed it, but it doesn't say this anywhere in the article you posted. [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] the closest it gets is saying that reducing elephant numbers would cause an increase in population sizes of other herbivores on the reserve, as far as i can tell [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] please, if i missed it by all means quote it, i've been reading and rereading through it trying to find where it says that culling elephants leads to population increase
[QUOTE=Govna;47563305]Doesn't matter though. People will believe what they want to believe.[/QUOTE] People will also believe conservation activists like the WWF and ecological scientists when they [I]recommend[/I] culling to contain unsustainably booming elephant populations, as in South Africa just five or six years ago. Pointing out that they're still considered threatened is disingenuous, as local populations (often confined to parks and game reserves) can still be large enough for overpopulation to be an issue. I'd be happy to pull up more sources when I can later but the idea that this is a purely economic decision not supported by conservationists is absolute nonsense. Most of the controversy over elephant culling centers on its ethics, not its efficacy in the face of ineffective alternatives like relocation or contraception.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;47563632]i may have missed it, but it doesn't say this anywhere in the article you posted. [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] the closest it gets is saying that reducing elephant numbers would cause an increase in population sizes of other herbivores on the reserve, as far as i can tell [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] please, if i missed it by all means quote it, i've been reading and rereading through it trying to find where it says that culling elephants leads to population increase[/QUOTE] i found where you found that study, [url=http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/elephants/campaign-action/elephant-cull/]only on this page[/url] does it say that culling increases population, not within the actual study itself. again, though, i may have missed it, so i imagine that you should be able to easily find it since you did source it.
Shame that he died, but when you go into these kinds of big game hunts you are aware of the risks beforehand. Taking one of these animals down isn't a simple thing like hunting deer or bear, if you don't get a good shot off they can survive even an extremely high caliber round.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;47563632]i may have missed it, but it doesn't say this anywhere in the article you posted. [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] the closest it gets is saying that reducing elephant numbers would cause an increase in population sizes of other herbivores on the reserve, as far as i can tell [editline]20th April 2015[/editline] please, if i missed it by all means quote it, i've been reading and rereading through it trying to find where it says that culling elephants leads to population increase[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;47563764]i found where you found that study, [url=http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/elephants/campaign-action/elephant-cull/]only on this page[/url] does it say that culling increases population, not within the actual study itself. again, though, i may have missed it, so i imagine that you should be able to easily find it since you did source it.[/QUOTE] [quote=Density Feedbacks, p.4]Elephant population growth seems particularly sensitive to changes in intercalving intervals. Adjustments in these vital rates will not be instantaneous however, and there could be a lag of up to a generation before population growth is halted because of continuing recruitment into the breeding segment of young animals already born.[/quote] African bush elephants have very flexible traits when it comes to sexual reproduction, including traits that promote rapid growth when unfavorable circumstances are encountered, like, you know, when you start killing them off in large numbers as part of a cull. Interestingly enough, later sexual maturity can also occur when carrying capacity starts to be reached or when unfavorable circumstances involving droughts and whatnot (circumstances that involve shortages of resources crucial to the survival of these animals basically) are encountered as well by them. Having evolved under harsh conditions in semiarid regions of Africa, bush elephants have acquired a great deal of sexual flexibility to respond accordingly to crises threatening their population. What's interesting is that the forest elephants like the bush elephants have an ability to maintain a population just nearing their region's carrying capacity without threatening stability, despite not having as flexible sexual traits as bush elephants do (having evolved in more stable rain forests); they're good at not overpopulating on their own what I'm trying to say. Forest elephant populations left alone fluctuate very little when carrying capacity is approached actually. I'm not saying overpopulation doesn't happen, because it still does, just that nature has mechanisms in place already with these animals to where normally, if you can leave well enough alone, things will sort themselves out on their own. Main reason I posted that study as well was because of what valid points it made against culling and the consequences of just manipulating the elephant population; also the fact it highlighted that we were hilariously incompetent at measuring Kruger Park's carrying capacity for elephants and that led to us needlessly culling them in the first place... because the 7,000 estimate was wrong, and the consequences of exceeding it were exaggerated. Point I'm trying to make here again is that people usually are the problem in these situations, like I said earlier. We fuck local ecosystems up by expanding into them, we try to fix what we fucked up despite really not understanding fully what needs to be done or what further consequences there will be for us interfering again, and by the end of it all, we've really messed things up without learning enough to know better than to repeat this cycle again. [QUOTE=catbarf;47563689]People will also believe conservation activists like the WWF and ecological scientists when they [I]recommend[/I] culling to contain unsustainably booming elephant populations, as in South Africa just five or six years ago. Pointing out that they're still considered threatened is disingenuous, as local populations (often confined to parks and game reserves) can still be large enough for overpopulation to be an issue. I'd be happy to pull up more sources when I can later but the idea that this is a purely economic decision not supported by conservationists is absolute nonsense. Most of the controversy over elephant culling centers on its ethics, not its efficacy in the face of ineffective alternatives like relocation or contraception.[/QUOTE] See above. Also, for what overpopulation issues do exist, contraception is the best approach. [url=http://www.thedodo.com/elephant-birth-control-764282854.html]Claiming it's ineffective is wrong; it's cheap and can be delivered just with a dart full of an immunocontraceptive vaccine that can be reversed if necessary.[/url] Take whatever issues you have with contraceptives up with the HSI; fact is, dozens of different animals species today apart from elephants are having their populations managed this way simply because it works. Contraceptives are a cheap, effective, long-term solution to population problems and are minimally invasive. The reason why so many parks haven't jumped to them again comes from economics; elephant ivory from culls and private hunters paying to hunt net governments in Africa lots of money. Skin as well, I forgot to mention its value earlier too.
[QUOTE=Govna;47578106]African bush elephants have very flexible traits when it comes to sexual reproduction, including traits that promote rapid growth when unfavorable circumstances are encountered, like, you know, when you start killing them off in large numbers as part of a cull. Interestingly enough, later sexual maturity can also occur when carrying capacity starts to be reached or when unfavorable circumstances involving droughts and whatnot (circumstances that involve shortages of resources crucial to the survival of these animals basically) are encountered as well by them. Having evolved under harsh conditions in semiarid regions of Africa, bush elephants have acquired a great deal of sexual flexibility to respond accordingly to crises threatening their population. [/QUOTE] from what i read in the study, that isn't saying that culling causes an increase in population, rather changing the birth survival rates to be lower will not have an effect for a while as the young elephants already born reach sexual maturity.
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