High above the plains of Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, tourists gliding on a hot air balloon watch in awe as a giant male elephant scoops up a pile of earth with its trunk and sends a swirling cloud of dust into the air. Showering mud over the body to coat the skin with a protective layer against the sun is a ritual elephants have honed over a millennia.
The 45-year-old elephant, named Mwalimu, is a “super tusker”, with each tusk weighing about 50 kg. Super tusker is not a scientific term but is used in the region to denote elephants with massive tusks. However, these giants, with their unique gene pools, face extinction threat due to trophy hunting.
Only about 30 super tuskers remain in Africa, estimates Joyce Poole, scientific director at ElephantVoices, a US-based charity. Of these, about eight super tuskers are in the Greater Amboseli-West Kilimanjaro population, where tro-phy hunting threatens them, she tells Down To Earth (DTE). The herd is a cross-border population that migrates between the western parts of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Amboseli National Park in Kenya, an area stretching 30,000 sq km. Since 1995, an unwritten agreement between the two countries ensured that elephants were not killed. But in 2022, Tanzania started allowing companies to organise trophy hunting in elephant habitats. Since then, five elephants have been killed, of which two were super tuskers.
Male elephants grow till 40 years of age, which is the start of their breeding peak. Tusks continue to grow throughout their life. Detailed data, studied over 50 years under the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, show that males between 35 and 55 years of age are prime breeders. Even males in their sixties are sexually active. It is these older males that sire the majority of offspring. Therefore, elimination of senior male elephants can cause serious problems, such as disrupting family groups and social stability. “Females prefer to mate with older males and it is the male’s longevity that determines his reproductive contribution and passing of genes promoting longevity to the population at large,” says Poole.
The older elephants also possess immense knowledge gathered over decades, guiding their herds to water and safe grazing areas. They are role models, and there is evidence that in their absence younger males become dysfunctional, aggressive and display inappropriate behaviour, say experts. “Killing them means losing a wealth of ecological intelligence for the younger generation of elephants,” Alfan Rija, professor of ecology and wildlife management at Sokoine University of Agriculture, tells DTE. Super tuskers are keystone individuals whose presence is crucial for the balance of the ecosystem, he says. “Their unique genetic makeup ensures the continuation of vital traits essential for the survival of the families,” Rija tells DTE. Beyond their ecological role, they are living legacies of the natural world and symbolise Tanzania and world heritage, Rija adds.
Six of the last eight super tuskers that roam Tanzania-Kenya border areas
According to Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA), protecting each super tusker elephant costs approximately US $50,000 annually. This money is spent on anti-poaching measures, veterinary care and habitat preservation. Conservationists, on the other hand, claim that the economic value of living elephants to local economies is substantial. A study reveals that an average elephant attracts $1.6 million in tourism spending over its lifetime, with even higher economic contributions expected for super tuskers. The conservationists argue that apart from not making financial sense, hunting super tuskers for short-term gains reduces long-term ecological stability and adds stress on a species already facing impacts of climate change, habitat loss, poaching and wildlife trafficking.
The 2,000-species-strong Greater Amboseli- West Kilimanjaro population is also significant because it is the longest-studied elephant herd in the world, covered under the Amboseli Elephant Research Project since 1972. “Each individual and its record document serves as a building block that underscores this immense scientific achievement gained over the past 51 years. Much of what we now know about elephant behaviour, communication, social structure, demography, reproduction and genetics, has resulted from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project study,” says Poole.
In a move to curb trophy hunting, Amboseli Trust for Elephants, a US-based charity; ElephantVoices; and Center for Biological Diversity, a US-based non-profit, filed a peti-tion on July 8 with the US’ Department of Interior, and Fish and Wildlife Service to ban import of elephant trophies taken in Tanzania from the Greater Amboseli-West Kilimanjaro elephant population Conservationists have also written to authorities in Tanzania. “The target-ed elephants were among the largest, oldest bulls,” a group of conservationists wrote in a letter decrying the killing of two super tuskers after Tanzania ended the moratorium on trophy hunting. The letter was published in the journal Science in June this year.
Simon Lugandu, a conservationist at Tanzania’s Wildlife Conservation Society, says that killing the giant elephants for trophy hunting is also morally wrong. “These elephants trust humans because of the strong protection and their regular interactions with tourists. We should protect them, not exploit them,” he says.
This was first published in the 1-15 August, 2024 print edition of Down To Earth