Elephants avoiding mines (Angola)
Elephants avoiding mines (Angola)
By STAN FREEMAN, The Republican
March 20, 2008
AMHERST - Eliminated from Angola during more than two decades of civil war, herds of African elephants are crossing heavily mined fields as they recolonize Angola from neighboring Namibia and Botswana.
But miraculously, they are avoiding the mines entirely, according to researchers at University of Massachusetts in Amherst who are tracking them via global positioning system satellites.
"It's quite a mystery," said Curtice R. Griffin, the UMass professor of wildlife ecology leading the research. He estimates that hundreds of elephants have crossed through the mine fields without incident.
"We have not detected any carcasses. We know elephants have an incredibly powerful sense of smell. But how they have come to associate the smell of a mine with danger is not known," he said.
Griffin, aided by UMass graduate student Alfred Kikoti, a native of Tanzania, is following 50 elephants that had tracking collars attached to them in northern Botswana and Namibia, a vast wild area in the Kalahari Desert to the south of Angola, where large numbers of elephants still reside.
Using position data downloaded from satellites, the UMass team has been tracking the elephants' seasonal movements to identify corridors they use as they make their way across the African landscape. The collared animals are mainly matriarchs of herds, which have an average size of about 18 elephants. So tracking the matriarch allows them to track the herd.
Tens of thousands of African elephants lived in southern Angola prior to the civil war that devastated the country from 1975 to 2002, Griffin said.
"They were killed for their ivory, which was sold to support the rebels. So the elephants are simply returning to areas where they once roamed. And because elephants and other animals weren't grazing there during the civil war, they are finding great food resources as they return," he said.
The extensive mine fields were laid because "that's where the headquarters of the rebel forces were, and they wanted to protect the encampments," Griffin said.
Once the war ended, surveys were done of the mine fields in anticipation that the explosive devices would be removed. However, the expense of such an effort has meant that most of the mines are still active. The positional coordinates of the mines are known, though, so the UMass researchers were able to see that elephant herds entering Angola were often taking a path directly through the mine-laden fields.
"We estimate that more than 1,800 elephants are now in southeast Angola. So certainly hundreds had to cross through the mine fields. We know that three of our (collared) elephants did, and they are each associated with herds," he said.
Regular aerial surveys of the mine fields are also conducted to look for carcasses of mine-killed elephants, he said.
"There are only a couple of records of elephants being blown up in the mine fields, but they occurred when people chased them into the fields."
The elephants' avoidance of mines has even prompted villagers "to dig up mines and rebury them around their crops to keep elephants away," he said.
Griffin's team recently founded "Elephants Without Borders," a nonprofit group dedicated to understanding the ecology and behaviors of elephants and developing elephant conservation programs.
Article at the following link:
http://www.masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/living-2/1205999435104940.xml&coll=1
------------------------------------
Melissa Groo
Save the Elephants News Service Researcher
For further information on elephants please see Save the Elephants' web site
at http://www.savetheelephants.org
-------------------------------------
This Save the Elephants project is supported by the International Elephant Foundation. http://www.elephantconservation.org
-------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
Please note that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any news story. In addition, we do not endorse any of the views expressed therein. We simply try to represent fairly what is in the media on elephants. If a reader finds inaccuracies in an article, we are happy to circulate corrections, if these can be verified.
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By STAN FREEMAN, The Republican
March 20, 2008
AMHERST - Eliminated from Angola during more than two decades of civil war, herds of African elephants are crossing heavily mined fields as they recolonize Angola from neighboring Namibia and Botswana.
But miraculously, they are avoiding the mines entirely, according to researchers at University of Massachusetts in Amherst who are tracking them via global positioning system satellites.
"It's quite a mystery," said Curtice R. Griffin, the UMass professor of wildlife ecology leading the research. He estimates that hundreds of elephants have crossed through the mine fields without incident.
"We have not detected any carcasses. We know elephants have an incredibly powerful sense of smell. But how they have come to associate the smell of a mine with danger is not known," he said.
Griffin, aided by UMass graduate student Alfred Kikoti, a native of Tanzania, is following 50 elephants that had tracking collars attached to them in northern Botswana and Namibia, a vast wild area in the Kalahari Desert to the south of Angola, where large numbers of elephants still reside.
Using position data downloaded from satellites, the UMass team has been tracking the elephants' seasonal movements to identify corridors they use as they make their way across the African landscape. The collared animals are mainly matriarchs of herds, which have an average size of about 18 elephants. So tracking the matriarch allows them to track the herd.
Tens of thousands of African elephants lived in southern Angola prior to the civil war that devastated the country from 1975 to 2002, Griffin said.
"They were killed for their ivory, which was sold to support the rebels. So the elephants are simply returning to areas where they once roamed. And because elephants and other animals weren't grazing there during the civil war, they are finding great food resources as they return," he said.
The extensive mine fields were laid because "that's where the headquarters of the rebel forces were, and they wanted to protect the encampments," Griffin said.
Once the war ended, surveys were done of the mine fields in anticipation that the explosive devices would be removed. However, the expense of such an effort has meant that most of the mines are still active. The positional coordinates of the mines are known, though, so the UMass researchers were able to see that elephant herds entering Angola were often taking a path directly through the mine-laden fields.
"We estimate that more than 1,800 elephants are now in southeast Angola. So certainly hundreds had to cross through the mine fields. We know that three of our (collared) elephants did, and they are each associated with herds," he said.
Regular aerial surveys of the mine fields are also conducted to look for carcasses of mine-killed elephants, he said.
"There are only a couple of records of elephants being blown up in the mine fields, but they occurred when people chased them into the fields."
The elephants' avoidance of mines has even prompted villagers "to dig up mines and rebury them around their crops to keep elephants away," he said.
Griffin's team recently founded "Elephants Without Borders," a nonprofit group dedicated to understanding the ecology and behaviors of elephants and developing elephant conservation programs.
Article at the following link:
http://www.masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/living-2/1205999435104940.xml&coll=1
------------------------------------
Melissa Groo
Save the Elephants News Service Researcher
For further information on elephants please see Save the Elephants' web site
at http://www.savetheelephants.org
-------------------------------------
This Save the Elephants project is supported by the International Elephant Foundation. http://www.elephantconservation.org
-------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
Please note that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any news story. In addition, we do not endorse any of the views expressed therein. We simply try to represent fairly what is in the media on elephants. If a reader finds inaccuracies in an article, we are happy to circulate corrections, if these can be verified.
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