CITES and also WWF are very questionable organisations because they are extremly pro-hunting in their decisions and advise.
though pointing out any CITES recommendation doesn't neseccarily means it serves conservation at all!
pippa

bwanamich:

I think I am getting some of the point about tusklessness being genetic, and I've known the muknahs (?sp) in Indian elephants have always been more dangerous.

However, the thing I'm having a hard time understanding is, even if it is genetic, if hunting and poaching removes a lot of the biggest bulls with tusks, that leaves more tuskless bulls left to breed (they can't all be removed). Am I right in this? If so, we will see even more and more tuskless elephants in the future and don't know what the impact of that will be. Now what is interesting to me is that in female herds tusked and tuskless are seen in the same family (?different fathers) and females all get along. You don't see a tuskless female being more dangerous or agressive than others. Perhaps it is because the females tend to look after one another as a group whereas males are far more solitary.

A question for you. If CITES forbids (supposedly) no shipping of ivory, what does the trophy hunter take home with him other than photos of himself with his catch? Are there loopholes in the law that allow him to ship home his ivory? If not, I'd feel gyped. Would rather do the green hunting and at least have bronzed tusks as a souvenir.

Jan,

I don't have all the answer of course but appreciate your civilised discourse.

You are right about poaching and hunting concentrating on elephants with ivory. With hunting, were allowed, the quantities are very small and in the overall picture not important. As stated elsewhere, Tanzania allows an average of betwen 25 and 35 elephants a year out of a population of around 100,000. Poaching is a much larger problem in that they kill considerably more elephants but they also are not selective, killing young, old, female, males , large or small ivory. I don't have statistics but I'm quite confident that most of the poached elephants have small ivory. In Tanzania, a huntable elephant must have a minimum size/weight of ivory. So of the total elephants shot by hunters almost all (sometimes a mistake occurs) the elephants shot will be bulls with good size ivory BUT numbers are few. I also believe that "tuskless genes" are not always transferable so a tuskless cow may give birth to an elephant that will eventually go on to carry tusks. In Zimbabwe, far more tuskless cows are shot by hunters than trophy bulls. I don't have numbers to give you but quantities may be important enough to have an effect on gene transmission.

Th US forbids the importation of ivory from Mozambique even if it is legal ivory. The reason for this is due to an unethical incident by an unscrupolous hunting operator many years ago. Still US hunters do go and hunt Moz and they take casts of the ivory or have a taxidermist replicate them.

I believe the most important factor to understand and accept is that in some areas, the control of wild elephant populations (for whatefer reason) by means of killing them is necessary. Where this is the case, rather it be done in a way that it earns money through tourist hunting than culling/cropping where it only incurs an expense.

bwanamich:

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Hope you'll bear with me.

The reason poachers/snarer are getting smaller and smaller tusks is because there really aren't that many old big-tusked males left anymore.

Let's say for the sake of conversation that I agree that 25 - 35 elephants a year is reasonable for hunters. That equals out to 350 older big-tusked breeding bulls in ten years! Since we are already seeing fewer and fewer of these big bulls left, in 10 - 20 years there won't be any left when you add in those poached/snared.

The breeding bulls are preferred by the females as the fathers of their babies. But the big, old breeding bulls are also the ones to put the younger, badly behaved bulls in their places. I just think that by hunting these mature bulls the hunting community is putting the entire elephant community in a real tailspin - and may even create more problems for the people by having more badly behaved younger bullls, not put in their places by older bulls, creating havoc in the communities.

I have one old bull friend, 45 years old, with huge tusks. I only know that if someone shot him, I'd grab a gun and shoot the hunter. I know hunters will think I am crazy. But elephants sometimes do understand. I don't know how many times a family has walked up past my veranda, stopped, trunks up sniffing, and I just quietly say "it's oK Mama, you're oK". The trunks immediately go down and they proceed. Now I know they don't know the words I am saying, but they know from the tone of voice that I am no threat and I also think they remember voices. They will not see me for six months but when I go back they know it is I talking to them. I have had visits from my old bull friend on numerous occasions in Kenya and he will stand in front of us munching his leaves and listening to us talk to him for 15 - 20 minutes before ambling off. He knows his name and responds to it.

Norah told me a true story of an Amboseli bull who was speared. The regular vet. wasn't available and a substitute was called in to treat the infected wound. The bull just got worse. Several days later the regular vet. was called in and the bull re-treated. After the reversal was given he walked away. The girls didn't see him for several months. One day they were out in their vehicle and he approached. As he neared the vehicle he looked right at them and kept touching the site of his old wound with his trunk as though to say, "see, it's all better now" and then walked away.

It is events like these that would prevent me from ever hunting an elephant, unless it were suffering. In all honesty, I don't feel the same way about other animals so I guess that makes me a hypocrit. Some of them appear really dumb and stupid (gnus) but elephants have so many qualities that humans have that I just couldn't pull the trigger.

Jan,

I understand totally your reasoning. I further agree that elephants are highly intelligent beings and some of the behavior you have witnessed with "your" old bull is testament to that. However, I canalmost guarantee that the same bull has on past and will in future occasions visit the local shambas and wreak havoc to their crops. He does this not because he doesn't like the locals - although they probably harass him trying to get rid of him - but because he loves their crops. And if anyone of those locals get's in his way, he will not hesitate to trample one. So the same animal whilst he is in the park is docile towards humans once on village land may be a threat towards human life. In the locals mind the sooner they get rid of him the better. And I don't blame them as I can understand where they are coming from. So the behaviour you are used to witnessing in this particular bull is but one side of his character and you cannot base your judgement of that animal simply on that. Elepahnts, like most other animals, learn very quickly where "safe territories" and where "dangerous territories" are and behave accordingly. How do you make the locals change their views on this and make them want to protect elephants despite the havoc they cause to their livelihood? Allow them to benefit from the presence of elephant on their land and they will live with the damage they cause.

As for Norah's story, it is pure speculation in my mind and one can conclude what they want from their own observations. Have you ever seen the movie "The lion King" or "Madagascar"? It potrays lions are cuddly, fuzzy brown tender animals. So cute aren't they? In reality, lions KILL PEOPLE. They are savage, dangerous animals with predatory instincts. In Tanzania alone more people are killed by lions than the other way round. The world only sees the "pleasant" side of these species because it touches the emotional and sensitive side of us humans. If National Georgraphic would sudddenly start bombarding us with the cruel, savage and destructive accounts of these species, we would all be less sentimental about them.

Jan,
Sorry, I got carried away and did not address the beginning of your post. Your calculations are correct. However, with a population of 100,000 elephants (And still growing, in 10 years it will number perhaps 110,000!), there will be many more than 350 bulls that will "graduate" from small bulls to big bulls. The offtake is always lower. That is the key.