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Orphan elephants go on the rampage
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20 July 1996
By Eddie Koch
Johannesburg
LIKE children, young elephants need discipline if they are to grow up as
responsible members of society. Wildlife biologists say that orphan bull
elephants in South Africa’s Pilanesberg Game Reserve have turned delinquent
because they have never been taken in hand by their elders.
Rogue elephants have become a serious problem in Pilanesberg, a small
wildlife reserve about 250 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg. Earlier this
month, a young bull charged a group of tourists on a photo-safari. The next day
the same elephant attacked and killed a professional hunter who had been sent to
shoot it. These are not isolated incidents. Two years ago another tourist was
attacked, chased out of his battered car, and trampled to death in the
reserve.
Humans are not the only victims: in the past three years, 19 white
rhinoceroses have been gored to death by elephants in Pilanesberg. Park rangers
have also seen bull elephants trying to mount rhino cows.
Scientists working for the Rhino and Elephant Foundation (REF), based in
Johannesburg, have now completed a study of the problem, and think they can
explain the elephants’ aberrant behaviour. Clive Walker, chairman of the
foundation, says that in each incident the rogue animal was from a group of
young male elephants brought into Pilanesberg from the Kruger National Park in
the early 1980s—after the rest of their herd was culled as part of an
effort to control Kruger’s burgeoning elephant population.
“We believe the stress these animals have been subjected to along with the
fact that they have never been subjected to the discipline and nurturing of a
matriarchal cow, which is a central feature of normal elephant family life,
accounts for their behaviour,” says Walker.
Marion Garaï, coordinator of the REF’s elephant research programmes,
says that some of the orphan elephants attached themselves to a herd of rhinos
after arriving in Pilanesberg. As they grew into young bulls, they tried mating
with rhino cows. “Either through frustration or territorial aggression, the
elephant bulls then turned on the rhino cows,” says Garaï.
Garaï agrees that a lack of discipline from older animals helped turn
the elephants into delinquents. “A contributing factor is the absence of older
bull elephants, who are known to discipline aggressive young bulls during the
mating season,” she says.
The park’s small size may also have played a part, however. The Pilanesberg
Game Reserve covers only about 35 000 hectares and is heavily stocked with large
mammals. It is also visited by a great number of tourists because of its
proximity to Johannesburg and a casino complex—which may place the animals
under stress. “These could be additional factors that cause territorial
aggression and unusual elephant-rhino interaction,” says Garaï.
The South African National Parks Board has now suspended its annual elephant
cull in Kruger, largely in response to pressure from international animal
welfare groups. Only whole families of elephants will be moved from the park to
other game reserves, which should mean that young bulls will continue to receive
the strict parental discipline they need.
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Magazine issue 2039 , published 20 July 1996
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