African Bush Elephant

Loxodonta africana

General Description

Scientific Name: Loxodonta africana

Subspecies: No Subspecies

Status: Endangered (decreasing)

Population Estimate: 415,000

Population in Assessed Areas: 58

Diet: Herbivore - grazier

Male Size: 5,000-10,000 Kgs

Female Size: 2,000-3,500 Kgs

Trophy Size: 60 inches

Generation Length: 25 years

Reproductive Season: Wet Season

Time of Activity: Diurnal

Description: The African bush elephant is the largest and heaviest land animal. On average, males are about 3.20 m (10.5 ft) tall at the shoulder and weigh 6.0 t (6.6 short tons), while females are smaller at about 2.60 m (8 ft 6 in) tall at the shoulder and 3.0 t (3.3 short tons) in weight. The maximum recorded shoulder height of an adult bull is 3.96 m (13.0 ft), with this individual having an estimated weight of 10.4 t (11.5 short tons). Elephants attain their maximum stature when they complete the fusion of long-bone epiphyses, occurring in males around the age of 40 and females around 25 years

The African forest elephant has a rounder head and ears than the African savannah

elephant, its tusks are straight with dark colored ivory and its skin is completely hairless. In contrast, the tusks of the African savannah elephant are curved and lighter, and the skin is sparsely covered with individual, hard spike-like hairs. Crossbreeding between the two species is common in areas with overlapping habitats. Elephants have only six molars in each cheek in their lifetime, and only one is functional. Once this wears down to the gum, it's gradually replaced by the one behind. The first molar appears at 1 year, the second at 2 years, the third at 6 years, the fourth at 15 years, the fifth at 28 years and the last at 47 years. Once the sixth molar has worn out the animal dies from starvation.

The African bush elephant has grey skin with scanty hairs. Its large ears cover the whole shoulder, and can grow as large as 2 m × 1.5 m (6 ft 7 in × 4 ft 11 in). Its large ears help to reduce body heat; flapping them creates air currents and exposes large blood vessels on the inner sides to increase heat loss during hot weather. The African bush elephant's ears are pointed and triangular shaped. Its occipital plane slopes forward. Its back is shaped markedly concave. Its sturdy tusks are curved out and point forward. It's long trunk or proboscis ends with two finger-like tips.

Ecology: African savannah elephant adapt well to a broad spectrum of habitats ranging from an annual rainfall of 150 mm in desert conditions, to 1 400 mm in sub-tropical savannah environments and tropical grasslands. Swamps, marshes and open to broken woodland are preferred. At present, the largest concentrations are found in bushveld and woodland savannah. The African savannah elephant will enter thicket but, by choice, avoid forests as the feeding value and nutrition of forest vegetation is insufficient and unsuitable.

Elephants are water dependent, drinking 2-3 times a day when available, or traveling up to 40+ km to reach waterholes, to drink at least once every 2.5 days. Bulls have an average water intake of 150-220 liters/day and cows require 100-150 liters/day. They are bulk or roughage feeders, the food consisting of a wide variety of browse, bark, fruit, grass, sedges and water plants. Diet comprises between 80-28% grass and 20-72% browse and is seasonal, with increased grass consumption in wet summer months and more browse in dry winter months. The preferred feeding height is 0.6-2.0 m, although adult bulls pull down branches with their trunks from as high as six metres. Depending on the habitat, an adult elephant can push over and uproot up to six trees per day in order to reach the upper canopy and fruit, or to feed on the highly nutritious and moist roots. Tree bark forms an essential part of the diet as it is rich in minerals and fatty acids. The elephant strips the bark off tree trunks with its tusks as well as chewing the branches while rolling them between its molars.

The elephant has a role in seed dispersal as its leaves its dung in a different location to that in which the vegetation was consumed. In Mozambique, historical pathways are made visible by the long stretches of maroela trees standing where seeds germinated in the dung left by elephants during their travels. The large droppings of 100-150 kg wet mass produced per day, play an important ecological role in the re-circulation of soil nutrients when dung beetles bury the dung in the soil. In areas with mineral-poor soils elephants tend to consume earth and will even dig for natural salts. For many years, elephants have been observed sourcing supplementary potassium sulphate by digging in the floors of the caves of Mount Elgon in Kenya.

The elephant’s favourite grasses are medium height to tall, 16-150 cm, consisting primarily of sweet species including those of the genera Cynodon, Panicum, Setaria, Cencrus, Themeda, Hyparrhenia, Andropogon and Cymbopogon. Elephants do not thrive in sourveld habitats, mixedveld habitats are marginal and sweetveld habitats optimal. Preferred browse includes species of the genera Grewia, Acacia, Adansonia, Sterculia, Azima, Combretum, Colophospermum, Terminalia and Portulacaria.

Only 44% of the dietary intake is digested in the hindgut. This method of digestion is less effective than the foregut digestion of ruminants, hence they must pass large volumes of roughage through its gut in order to gain sufficient energy and nutrition. The average daily fresh food consumption of adult bulls is 250-300 kg, and cows, 150-170 kg. Because browse material contains considerable quantities of secondary toxins that are harmful to elephants they must constantly supplement their diet with grass. This problem is especially evident among the few remaining elephants that are restricted to the Knysna forest where there is a lack of grasses and forbs.

Behavior: Elephants are natural migrants and move across vast areas. Home ranges are not permanent, the size depending on the type of habitat. In forests they are between 14-52 km2, in the grassy savannah plains of Kenya they are an average of 1 800 km2 for

breeding herds and from 840-3 750 km2 for bulls, and in the bushveld of the Kruger

National Park they range between 240-720 km2 for cows and breeding herds and 140–1

140 km2 for bulls. During droughts elephants tend to home in on smaller ranges

concentrated around permanent water sources, or along drainage lines or watercourses.

No territorial behaviour is evident. The average walking distance is 12-20 km per 24hour

cycle.

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Elephants live within a network of complex social relations and communicate with a comprehensive spectrum of more than 200 low-frequency (<15 Hz) vocalizations. In comparison, human hearing ranges from 30-40 Hz. The social structure is matriarchal, the oldest cow of between 38-60 years being the central figure. She keeps the herd of 3-12 members together and takes decisions regarding movements, feeding grounds and home range. The rest of the herd consists of her calves, and her older daughters and their calves. Family members are usually tightly bonded for life and older cows display considerable physical contact. Mass herds of up to 300-1 300 are a common, formed by the aggregation of several family herds. Individual families keep their structures within the mass herd. Physical contact is also displayed between members of different families but is less intimate.

Calves grow up in a highly protective arena where the entire family nurses them. When family herds become too large they split into sub-groups and the senior beta cows and their related offspring establish new family units. When young bulls become sexually mature at 12-16 years, they leave their mother herds and join bachelor herds of 2-35 bulls. When social maturity is reached at 25 years, a bull temporarily accompanies a family herd during the times of his musth. Adult bulls older than 30 years are mostly solitary. Some cows also become solitary at an age of about 50 years when they are post-mature and infertile.

Reproduction: Males experience their first musth period at 25 - 30 years of age. Cows ovulate for the first time at the age of 11 years. They are in estrus for 2–6 days. African bush elephants mate during the rainy season. Bulls in musth cover long distances in search of cows and associate with large family units. They listen for the cows' loud, very low frequency calls and attract cows by calling and by leaving trails of strong-smelling urine. Cows search for bulls in musth, listen for their calls, and follow their urine trails. Bulls in musth are more successful at obtaining mating opportunities than those who are not. A cow may move away from bulls that attempt to test her estrous condition. If pursued by several bulls, she will run away. Once she chooses a mating partner, she will stay away from other bulls, which are threatened and chased away by the favoured bull. Competition between bulls overrides their choice sometimes.

Gestation lasts 22 months. The interval between births was estimated at 3.9 to 4.7 years in Hwange National Park. Where hunting pressure on adult elephants was high in the 1970s, cows gave birth once in 2.9 to 3.8 years. Cows in Amboseli National Park gave birth once in 5 years on average. During one birth, a group of 80 elephants including 8 bulls had gathered in the morning in a 150 m (490 ft) radius around the cow. A small group of calves and cows stood near the pregnant cow, rumbling and flapping their ears. While she was in labor, fluid streamed from her temporal and ear canals. She remained standing while giving birth. The newborn calf struggled to its feet within 30 minutes and walked 20 minutes later. The mother expelled the placenta about 100 minutes after birth and covered it with soil immediately. Captive-born calves weigh between 100 and 120 kg (220 and 260 lb) at birth and gain about 0.5 kg (1.1 lb) weight per day. Cows lactate for about 4.8 years. Calves exclusively suckle their mother's milk during the first three months. Thereafter, they start feeding independently and slowly increase the time spent feeding until they are two years old. During the first three years, male calves spend more time suckling and grow faster than female calves. After this period, cows reject male calves more frequently from nursing than female calves.

Conservation Analysis

Current & Historic range: African Savanna Elephants once occurred across all of Africa and currently are found in 24 countries (see range map). Although knowledge of African Savanna Elephant distribution varies spatially and temporally, it is evident that the species’ distribution is retracting and becoming increasingly fragmented across their range in the continent. African Savanna Elephants occupy an estimated 15% of their historic pre- agricultural range, though their populations across 75% of those areas, are significantly lower than in historical times. African Savanna Elephants are considered nationally extirpated in Burundi and Mauritania. In Eswatini, the once extirpated population has been re-established through reintroductions that began in the 1980s. Recent range expansion is evident in Kenya and Botswana.

Current & Historic Populations: It's through that prior to the 1600's, and the arrival of European powers on the African continent, at least 25 million elephants roamed over the continent. At the beginning of the Holocene, those populations would have been considerably higher (closer to 50 million) considering the large range contraction they experience due to human exploitation and climate change in their North African range.

Over the past century, African Savanna Elephant subpopulations have declined across most of their range. The African Elephant Status Report 2016 estimated a continental population of 415,428 (+/- 95% C.I. 20,111) for both African Savanna and African Forest Elephants combined and reported a continental decline of approximately 111,000 elephants since 2006 (Thouless et al. 2016). For a similar time period, following a survey of approximately 90% of their range, a decline of 30% of African Savanna Elephants was reported (Chase et al. 2016).

Threats to Species Survival: Poaching of African Savanna Elephants for ivory is a major cause of individual death and population decline. After a sustained period of intense poaching between the late 1970s and 1989, many African Savanna Elephant populations (e.g., in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda) experienced two to three decades of recovery. Some northern African Savanna Elephant populations, however, experienced persistent poaching pressure through the last three decades. Data collected as a part of the CITES Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants programme (MIKE), indicate that poaching significantly intensified across the continent starting in 2008 and peaking in 2011 – an unsustainably high level of poaching has continued into current times in some areas of the continent (CITES 2018, 2019), and may be increasing in some of the historically less-affected southern African populations.

Vast areas in Sub-Saharan Africa were transformed for agricultural use and the building of infrastructure. This disturbance leaves the elephants without a stable habitat and limits their ability to roam freely. Large corporations associated with commercial logging and mining have fragmented the land, giving poachers easy access to the African bush elephant. As human development grows, the human population faces the trouble of contact with the elephants more frequently, due to the species need for food and water. Farmers residing in nearby areas come into conflict with the African bush elephants rummaging through their crops. In many cases, they kill the elephants as soon as they disturb a village or forage upon its crops.

Map of African Bush Elephant Historic Distribution

Map of African Bush Elephant Current Distribution

Recommended Conservation Actions:

Further resource and manage protected areas where African Bush Elephants exist.
Increase the access to funding and the effectiveness of anti-poaching techniques across Southern Africa, to make rhino protection as affordable as possible.
Encourage the implementation of economic incentives that allow landowners to profit off the presence of healthy African Bush Elephant populations, whether that be through hunting or ecotourism.
Improve survey methods to get accurate population data, such as implementing long-term monitoring programs.
Further investigate the impacts of elephant overpopulation on landscapes such as the Greater Kruger area, Addo Elephant national park, and large areas of Northern Botswana.

Economic & Cultural Analysis

Ecotourism Value: Extremely High

Hunting Value: Extremely High

Meat Value: Moderate-high

Average Trophy Value: $12,000 - 50,000 USD

Meat Yield per Animal: 1,500-6,000 kg

Economic Value/Impacts: African Bush Elephant present considerable value to both the ecotourism and hunting industries across their range, as well as to rural and hunter-gatherer peoples that have likely hunted and lived alongside this species for hundreds of thousands of years. Their incredibly large body size meant that each animal produces a considerable amount of meat, that can feed and entire village for weeks.

Bush Elephants are arguably the most iconic wildlife species on the African continent, with healthy populations being a major economic asset to any country that preserves the,. Because of this, the mere presence of elephants on a property can be a significant drawcard for ecotourism reserves, and are often one of the most sought after species on game drives. This value is realized across numerous game reserves in South Africa, that take on the expenses of protecting them from the onslaught of poachers, because tourists are highly motivated to visit reserves with abundant populations of elephants. Once established though, issues of habitat degradation can quickly occur, due to the vast amount of habitat that elephants require, and their ability to increase their population relatively fast, due to their very low calf mortality rate.

As Elephant numbers have begun to increase in large areas of Southern Africa, limited trophy hunting has also been identified as a sustainable source of revenue for reserves, some of which have excess animals that can't just be relocated onto other reserves across the country. Prices of these rhino hunts can be astronomically high, ranging from just over $12,000 for a female cull tag, to over $50,000 for a mature bull with a massive tusks. The value of those "Super tusked" bulls is higher to the ecotourism industry than the hunting industry though, so it may be logical to not hunt them, and instead hunt smaller tusked bulls to only allow superior genetics to survive, as well as a smaller number of cull females to limit population growth.

Cultural Value: Over the past 300,000 years of human existence, we have had an incredibly close relationship with Bush Elephants, both from a sustenance perspective, and from a spiritual perspective. Both species evolved alongside each other on the African continent, and Humans are likely one of the only predator species alive capable of actively reducing elephant populations, due to our use of tools and ability to hunt in teams. Even today, elephant meat serves as a significant source of protein to communities across the continent, whether that be from illegally harvested animals, or as a by-product of the trophy hunting industry.

Many African cultures revere the African Elephant as a symbol of strength and power. It is also praised for its size, longevity, stamina, mental faculties, cooperative spirit, and loyalty. South Africa uses elephant tusks in their coat of arms to represent wisdom, strength, moderation and eternity. The elephant is symbolically important to the nation of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire); the Coat of arms of Ivory Coast features an elephant head escutcheon as its focal point.

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