Just Say No To Elephant Hunting

I understand about hunting and its role in contemporary wildlife management. Really, I do.

Without hunters taking deer, for instance, America's forested and semi-forested lands would soon be absolutely overrun with the creatures, which would within a year or two of breeding without hunting to thin the herd would soon forage themselves into massive starvation. In a state of nature, wolves, panthers, and similar sorts of predators would thin the deer herd and the system would be more or less self-regulating. However, because those predators are dangerous to humans and for sport-hunting reasons, we have all but eliminated those elements from our ecosystems. So hunting is good for the deer as a population because it keeps their overall numbers at a sustainable level. Whether enough permits are issued and used is a subject of debate; poaching is also an issue, but overall, hunting permits are a good way to manage a regions overall herd of deer so that the deer do not actually die out completely. This makes sense to me.

But nevertheless, I am a little horrified to see that South Africa intends to begin issuing permits for the culling of elephants. South Africa's herd of elephants is only about 20,000 head, out of something like 500,000 total in all of Africa. It seems impossible to believe that South Africa, a land blessed by nature with some of the richest and most fertile land on Earth, could sustain only 20,000 head of elephant when smaller, less productive areas of the continent sustain ten times that many animals.

But, South Africa's government claims that the country's resources cannot sustain a larger herd than that. Although an elephant's birth cycle is much slower than a deer's, I can see the argument that a similar process could be at work -- if the herd grows (because it is protected from hunting by humans and an adult elephant generally has no natural predators except for very desperate lions) then eventually some of the animals will starve -- and that could wind up being worse than hunting, because they share food well amongst themselves so entire troops of elephants might starve to death instead of individuals.

Okay, I understand that logic. But coming as it does as demand for ivory worldwide is increasing, it looks decidedly suspicious. (Interestingly, elephants seem to be evolving in response to the pressure of generations of ivory hunting -- tuskless African elephants, considered an anomaly less than a century ago, are now approaching one-third of all elephant births in portions of Africa.) It's very easy to get the idea that South Africa is attempting to capitalize on this demand as a source of revenue.

Now, to a farmer, an elephant is a hazard. It's a wild creature that does a really good job of knocking down his fences, and if he grows the right kind of crop, the elephant will eat it, too. You can see why a farmer might not be so impressed as a suburban American with the beauty, intelligence, and emotional draw of these majestic beasts. And South Africa wants to increase the strength of its agricultural industry. This, too, has nothing to do with sustainable wildlife management.

And getting to the point of sustainable wildlife management -- the African elephant's only predator of any significance is man. An adult elephant is simply too big for a predator to take down. So the elephant hunter in Africa is not filling a void in the ecological chain of life that the deer hunter in America does. South Africa has lions which will, on occasion, take a young elephant or an old one that is enfeebled. Lions face challenges of their own, but they aren't extinct yet, either. The natural process of culling the herd will take place without human intervention. Without man's involvement, most elephants would die of old age or lack of food and water resources in times of drought. And elephants mourn their dead.

I would also think that South Africa would realize that it makes a great deal of money from tourism. People go to Africa from around the world so that they can go on photo-safaris and see the elephants. I would love to do that. (That and to tour the African wineries and go kloofing.) Some friends of mine did and they came back with some really impressive photographs. I don't know whether to think of this policy as enlightened or misguided. I'm tending towards the latter.

It's hard to believe that South Africa has reached its territorial limits of tolerance for elephants at 20,000 head and that management has reached the point where hunting is a necessary control mechanism. I don't pretend to be an expert, but the bulk of the other elephants in Africa seem to be okay living in the central and eastern portions of the continent, in much larger numbers. Granted that South Africa is more industrialized and possesses a slightly more temperate climate than many of its elephant-hosting neighbors. Still, it seems more likely to me that the government is giving in to complaints about elephants by its farming lobby and hoping for big revenue by auctioning off elephant hunting licenses.

With the tremendous tourism draw that the elephants are part of, and the fact that South Africa has relatively few of these majestic creatures, I would think that South Africa would want as many elephants as it could get. At minimum, this seems like an unenlightened policy. And more fell motives than short-sightedness may be at play. I do not want to reward that sort of policy with my tourism dollars -- and a trip to Africa would be quite expensive.

For now, if I were going to consider a safari trip, I might just go somewhere other than South Africa; maybe I'd go to Tanzania; I'd go to Kenya once the civil unrest dies down there. Not as much wine, but those countries both take protecting their elephants very seriously; their people view their elephants as symbols of national pride and identity; surely they are as horrified at South Africa's decision as we Americans would be if Canada issued permits to hunt bald eagles (not that Canada would ever do such a thing, but you get my point).

If elephants ever become extinct, we're really going to miss them. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help save the elephants.