African elephant status report 2007: an update from the African elephant database

Blanc, Julian; Barnes, R. F. W.; Craig, George C.; Dublin, Holly T.; Thouless, C. R.; Douglas-Hamilton, I.; Hart, John

doi:10.2305/iucn.ch.2007.ssc-op.33.en

Cited by 246 publications

(357 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…To put the area in perspective, the study area is roughly the same size as the combined area of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont in the United States. Yet our study area is just a portion of the larger Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, which stretches across 320 000 km 2 and five countries, and is home to some 220 000 elephants (Blanc et al, 2007). Across Africa, initiatives to create corridors, link protected areas, and establish transfrontier conservation areas may increase the amount of land available to elephants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating mortality into habitat selection to identify secure and risky habitats for savannah elephants

Roever

Aarde

Chase

2013

Biological Conservation

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Empirical models of habitat selection are increasingly used to guide and inform habitat-based management plans for wildlife species. However, habitat selection does not necessarily equate to habitat quality particularly if selection is maladaptive, so incorporating measures of fitness into estimations of occurrence is necessary to increase model robustness. Here, we incorporated spatially explicit mortality events with the habitat selection of elephants to predict secure and risky habitats in northern Botswana. Following a two-step approach, we first predict the relative probability of use and the relative probability of mortality based on landscape features using logistic regression models. 2Combining these two indices, we then identified low mortality and high use (primary habitat) and areas of high mortality and high use (primary risk). We found that mortalities of adult elephants were closely associated with anthropogenic features, with 80% of mortalities occurring within 25 km of people.Conversely, elephant habitat selection was highest at distances of 30 to 50 km from people. Primary habitat for elephants occurred in the central portion of the study area and within the Okavango Delta; whereas risky areas occurred along the periphery near humans. The protected designation of an area had less influence on the proportion of prime habitat therein than did the locations of the area in relation to human development. Elephant management in southern Africa is moving towards a more self-sustaining, habitat-based approach, and information on selection and mortality could serve as a baseline to help identify demographic sources and sinks to stabilize elephant demography.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating mortality into habitat selection to identify secure and risky habitats for savannah elephants

Roever

Aarde

Chase

2013

Biological Conservation

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“…Elephants are capable of living in such habitats, as seen with elephants in the Etosha cluster which occur within the Etendeka Mountains; therefore, the viability of this corridor should not be discounted. It is estimated that 58 percent of African elephants occur within southern Africa, and of those approximately 85 percent are located in the Chobe, Kafue, Luangwa and Zambezi clusters (see Blanc et al 2007). Consequently, the provision of these corridors linking Chobe, Kafue, Luangwa, and Zambezi will unite most of southern Africa's elephants into a single entity that could function as a metapopulation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Elephants in the Etosha cluster are effectively isolated by the lack of water in areas east of the cluster. Blanc et al (2007) Unfortunately, Malawi has few areas outside of parks and game reserves with human densities below 15.6 persons/km 2 , so the potential for connectivity between Luangwa and Niassa is unlikely. Our results therefore suggest that the Etosha and Niassa clusters have limited potential to be managed as a spatially structured metapopulation within the conservation areas examined in this study and, importantly, connectivity along an east-west axis may be limited.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Speculation has it that elephants were once wide-spread across Africa, but current populations have become fragmented and compressed into isolated protected areas (see Blanc et al 2007). Interrupting natural movement patterns in elephants intensifies the damage that these ecosystem engineers cause to vegetation (Loarie et al 2009b;van Aarde et al 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Functional connectivity within conservation networks: Delineating corridors for African elephants

Roever

Aarde

Leggett

2013

Biological Conservation

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Managing multiple parks, reserves, and conservation areas collectively as conservation networks is a recent, yet growing trend. But in order for these networks to be ecologically viable, the functional connectivity of the landscape must be ensured. We assessed the connectivity between six African savanna elephant populations in southern Africa to test whether existing conservation networks were functioning and to identify other areas that could benefit from being managed as conservation networks. We used resource selection function models to create an index of habitat selection by males and female elephants. We employed this habitat use index as a resistance surface, and applied circuit theory to assess connectivity between adjacent elephant populations within six clusters of protected areas across southern Africa. Circuit theory current flow maps predicted a high likelihood of connectivity in the central portion of our study area (i.e. between the Chobe, Kafue, Luangwa, and Zambezi cluster). Main factors limiting connectivity across the study area were high human density in the east and a lack of surface water in the west. These factors effectively isolate elephants in the Etosha cluster in Namibia and Niassa clusters in Mozambique from the central region. Our models further identified two clusters where elephants might benefit from being managed as part of a conservation network, 1) northern Zambia and Malawi and 2) northern Mozambique.We conclude that using habitat selection and circuit theory models to identify conservation networks is a data-based method that can be applied to other focal species to identify and conserve functional connectivity.

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“…In Central Africa, the forested country of Gabon is inhabited by more than half of the remaining forest elephant (Loxodontata cyclotis Matschie, 1900) population (Blanc et al, 2007(Blanc et al, , 2013. Forest elephant numbers have declined dramatically in the last decade, with poaching being the primary threat to this species (Maisels et al, 2013;Poulsen et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Camera traps to study the forest elephant's (Loxodonta cyclotis) response to chilli pepper repellent devices in Gamba, Gabon

et al. 2018

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In Central Africa, Gabon is a forested country with a rich biodiversity where conflict between wild animals and humans is common and causes innumerable damage to crops. The worst crop raiders are elephants, which can destroy an entire crop in a single night. These raids threaten people's livelihoods as well as elephants because angry farmers often retaliate with killing campaigns against crop raiding elephants. To keep elephants out of farms the use of chilli pepper is recommended as a non-lethal method. But only a few studies have tested methods to use chilli pepper to deter elephants in Gabon. Results from this study give a starting point for understanding how forest elephants react to devices using chilli pepper as a deterrent based on sequential camera trap photos. A chilli pepper device that resulted in splashing concentrate on the elephant face proved to be the most effective at deterring elephants. Surprisingly, chilli pepper concentrate directly applied to mango fruits did not deter elephants from eating the fruits, although it probably caused some discomfort. To make effective deterrent devices with chilli pepper future works need to focus on exploring practices to reach the elephant face with the least, safe quantity of chilli pepper and which will have enough strong deterrent effect.

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African elephant status report 2007: an update from the African elephant database

Abstract: The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the

Cited by 246 publications

References 34 publications

Incorporating mortality into habitat selection to identify secure and risky habitats for savannah elephants

Incorporating mortality into habitat selection to identify secure and risky habitats for savannah elephants

Functional connectivity within conservation networks: Delineating corridors for African elephants

Camera traps to study the forest elephant's (Loxodonta cyclotis) response to chilli pepper repellent devices in Gamba, Gabon

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