Yahoo – AFP,
August 31, 2016
Paris (AFP) - Even without poachers, Central Africa's forest elephants would need almost a century to get their numbers back up to 2002 levels, said a study Wednesday that pried into the elusive creatures' slow-breeding ways.
The population of Central Africa's forest elephants has been decimated by illegal hunting, with an estimated 65 percent decline between 2002 and 2013, researchers say (AFP Photo/Laudes Martial Mbon) |
Paris (AFP) - Even without poachers, Central Africa's forest elephants would need almost a century to get their numbers back up to 2002 levels, said a study Wednesday that pried into the elusive creatures' slow-breeding ways.
The
population had been decimated by illegal hunting, with an estimated 65 percent
decline between 2002 and 2013, said researchers.
Roaming the
tropical forests of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon and
Democratic Republic of Congo, the tusker sub-species is thought to have
numbered about one to two million at its peak, study co-author George Wittemyer
of Colorado State University told AFP.
In 1993,
the rough estimate was 500,000, and in 2013 some 100,000.
"The
forest populations are reproducing now, though at a very slow rate,"
Wittemyer said by email.
"The
problem is that poaching is removing individuals at a rate that either drives
the population to decline or negates any increases due to births."
Forest
elephants are smaller than savannah elephants -- the other, much better
studied, African sub-species.
Their ears
are more oval-shaped, while their tusks are straighter and point downward,
according to environmental group WWF.
Targeted by
poachers for their meat and ivory-bearing tusks, the forest elephant is
categorised as "vulnerable", which means "facing a high risk of
extinction in the wild," the WWF website says.
African
forest elephant (AFP Photo/Laurence Chu)
|
Wittemyer
and a team analysed data obtained from decades-long, on-sight monitoring of the
births and deaths of elephants at Dzanga Bai, a park in Central African
Republic.
90 years
to recover
In what is
claimed to be the first-ever study of forest elephant demography, they
concluded the creature was a much slower breeder than its open-air cousin.
Female
forest elephants only start reproducing after the age of 20, and give birth
once every five to six years, the team observed.
Their
cousins from the savannah, by comparison, typically start breeding at 12 and
produce a calf every three to four years.
"Their
reported low birth rates mean that it will take forest elephants at least 90
years to recover" from poaching losses, the researchers said in a
statement.
The data
suggested that what are considered sustainable levels of trade in forest
elephant ivory, were calculated on the basis of overestimated population growth
rates, they added.
This should
be kept in mind when ivory trade limits are next debated, said the team --
crucially at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species which opens in Johannesburg on September 24.
Forest
elephants are crucial for their environment, and many tree species rely on the
giants to disperse their seeds. The trees, in turn, absorb climate-altering
greenhouse gases.
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