Elephant conservation is a complex issue that requires support and funding in multiple areas to be successful. Founded in 2012, the International Elephant Project (IEP) works to protect and conserve elephant populations and their rainforest habitat in South-east Asia through a holistic approach to conservation.
 
This starts at the grassroots level, working with and involving local indigenous communities.
 
IEP supports a wide range of critical on-the-ground projects in Borneo, Sumatra, and Laos that address the problems facing remaining fragmented elephant populations - including fighting deforestation, human-elephant conflicts and poaching.
 
A major strategy is to radio collar and track elephant herds by satellite. Human Elephant Conflict Mitigation teams then follow the herds and work with local communities to see that both elephants and humans remain safe and live in harmony. By monitoring and protecting multiple elephant herds, we can ensure sufficient numbers and genetic diversity to survive.
 
A new book authored by IEP’s Field Manager, Dr Alexander Mossbrucker, highlights the work of IEP in protecting the Critically Endangered Sumatran elephant, the most endangered of all the Asian elephant species. For the past ten years, Alex has been working alongside a team of dedicated local conservationists who engage in various activities to help mitigate the threats to elephant populations, including ranger patrols, wildlife monitoring, human-wildlife conflict mitigation and community education.
 
Island Elephants: The Giants of Sumatra is available from the International Elephant Project website www.internationalelephantproject.org/islandelephants

Many animals acquire otherwise inaccessible food with the aid of sticks and occasionally water. As an exception, some reports suggest that elephants manipulate breathing through their trunks to acquire inaccessible food. Here, we report on two female Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in Kamine Zoo, Japan, who regularly blew to drive food within their reach. We experimentally investigated this behaviour by placing foods in inaccessible places. The elephants blew the food until it came within accessible range. Once the food was within range, the elephants were increasingly less likely to blow as the distance to the food became shorter. One subject manipulated her blowing duration based on food distance: longer when the food was distant. These results suggest that the elephants used their breath to achieve goals: that is, they used it not only to retrieve the food but also to fine-tune the food position for easy grasping. We also observed individual differences in the elephants’ aptitude for this technique, which altered the efficiency of food acquisition. Thus, we added a new example of spontaneous behaviour for achieving a goal in animals. The use of breath to drive food is probably unique to elephants, with their dexterous trunks and familiarity with manipulating the act of blowing, which is commonly employed for self-comfort and acoustic communication.

Paper reference:
Mizuno, K. et al. (2015), Asian elephants acquire inaccessible food by blowing, Animal Cognition, DOI 10.1007/s10071-015-0929-2

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Negative influences on the establishment and persistence of large trees used by tree-nesting birds as nesting sites represent a potential threat to vultures and raptors. We monitored large trees and their surrounding vegetation and analysed whether trees with nesting sites are at risk due to elephant impact. Trees with nests did not differ in elephant impact from control trees without nests, and the survival rates of trees with nests and the actual nests within the trees showed that nests decreased at a faster rate than the trees themselves. Elephant damage did not affect the persistence of nests over the 5-year monitoring period. However, the presence of insects and fungus on large trees was negatively related to tree survival, thereby indicating that elephant impact could indirectly facilitate insect and fungus attack and shorten the lifespan of a tree.

Paper at the following link:
Susanne Marieke Vogel, Michelle Deborah Henley, Sieglinde Corny Rode, Daniel van de Vyver, Kate F. Meares, Gabrielle Simmons and Willem Frederik de Boer (2014) Elephant (Loxodonta africana) impact on trees used by nesting vultures and raptors in South Africa. Article first published online: 9 JUN 2014 DOI: 10.1111/aje.12140

Contact directed by uninvolved bystanders toward others in distress, often termed consolation, is uncommon in the animal kingdom, thus far only demonstrated in the great apes, canines, and corvids. Whereas the typical agonistic context of such contact is relatively rare within natural elephant families, other causes of distress may trigger similar, other-regarding responses. In a study carried out at an elephant camp in Thailand, we found that elephants affiliated significantly more with other individuals through directed, physical contact and vocal communication following a distress event than in control periods. In addition, bystanders affiliated with each other, and matched the behavior and emotional state of the first distressed individual, suggesting emotional contagion. The initial distress responses were overwhelmingly directed toward ambiguous stimuli, thus making it difficult to determine if bystanders reacted to the distressed individual or showed a delayed response to the same stimulus. Nonetheless, the directionality of the contacts and their nature strongly suggest attention toward the emotional states of conspecifics. The elephants’ behavior is therefore best classified with similar consolation responses by apes, possibly based on convergent evolution of empathic capacities.

Paper at the following link:
Plotnik JM, de Waal FB. (2014) Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) reassure others in distress. PeerJ 2:e278 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.278

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Conservation of wide-ranging species, such as the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), depends on fully protected areas and multiple-use areas (MUA) that provide habitat connectivity. In the Gamba Complex of Protected Areas in Gabon, which includes 2 national parks separated by a MUA containing energy and forestry concessions, we studied forest elephants to evaluate the importance of the MUA to wide-ranging species. We extracted DNA from elephant dung samples and used genetic information to identify over 500 individuals in the MUA and the parks. We then examined patterns of nuclear microsatellites and mitochondrial control-region sequences to infer population structure, movement patterns, and habitat use by age and sex. Population structure was weak but significant, and differentiation was more pronounced during the wet season. Within the MUA, males were more strongly associated with open habitats, such as wetlands and savannas, than females during the dry season. Many of the movements detected within and between seasons involved the wetlands and bordering lagoons. Our results suggest that the MUA provides year-round habitat for some elephants and additional habitat for others whose primary range is in the parks. With the continuing loss of roadless wilderness areas in Central Africa, well-managed MUAs will likely be important to the conservation of wide-ranging species.

Paper at the following link:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12161/abstract

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Last week I had an interview on Q-Music (a Belgian radio station) about PACHYDERM and Elephant Haven (www.elephanthaven.com).

You can download and listen to the interview (Dutch spoken) here:

Tony Verhulst, vice president of Elephant Haven, also had an interview (Dutch spoken) on Belgian radio:

The conservation and management priorities for the effective regulation of trade in wild animals and plants during the triennium 2013 to 2016 is taking centre stage at the 62nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which is being held in Geneva from 23 to 27 July. Some 350 participants from all over the world are attending, including observers from Parties, intergovernmental bodies, the private sector and non-governmental organizations specialized in wildlife conservation and international trade.

The report on Elephant conservation, illegal killing and ivory trade is available at: http://www.cites.org/eng/com/SC/62/E62-46-01.pdf

The committee will also discuss a study on a Decision-making mechanisms and necessary conditions for a future trade in African Elephant Ivory available at: http://www.cites.org/eng/com/SC/62/E62-46-04-A.pdf

Full press release at: http://www.cites.org/eng/news/pr/2012/20120724_SC62.php