Compassionate conservation and elephant personhood

Promoting predators and compassionate conservation.

Elephant hunting and conservation.

A study of African elephants by Karen McComb and colleagues revealed that matriarchs are repositories of social knowledge for family groups (Reports, "Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants," 20 Apr., p. 491). Therefore, the authors suggest that the removal of older elephants by hunters could have serious consequences for the conservation of the species. McComb et a...

The ivory trade and elephant conservation

In response to significant elephant population declines in the 1970s and 1980s because of poaching for ivory, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) banned the international trade in Asian and African elephant species by listing them on Appendix I in 1973 and 1989, respectively. Many southern African countries disagreed with the African e...

Conservation science and elephant management in southern Africa

THE PREVAILING INCREASE IN ELEPHANT numbers across areas of southern Africa raises concern for their impact on biological diversity. Several approaches to elephant management focus on limiting numbers to alleviate these consequences. However, landscape fragmentation, fences, water supplementation as well as the shape and size of some conservation areas restrict range use and intensify the effec...

Water conservation in fasting northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris).

Prolonged terrestrial fasting is a key element in the life history of elephant seals. While on land seals typically fast without access to fresh water, and thus must maintain positive water balance by reductions in water loss such that they can subsist primarily on metabolic water production (MWP). The terrestrial apnea demonstrated by seals may reduce respiratory evaporative water loss (REWL) ...