SFS3252: Elephant Ecology and Conservation in Kenya

The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is an important keystone species in Africa and has profound influence on the structure and dynamics of landscapes where it co-exists with other species. It’s one of the most charismatic and charming species but its conservation and population status has continued to attract a lot of concern within and beyond Africa. A key worry is that it’s conservation is increasingly becoming uncertain across the entire African continent as due illegal poaching, landscape fragmentation, and retaliatory attacks by local communities due to prevalence of human-elephant conflicts. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were several millions of elephants roaming across Africa (Douglas-Hamilton 1979), but today, they have declined rapidly, and are estimated to be nearly 450,000 - 700,000 (Stephenson, 2007). Illegal poaching has been and remains the biggest threat to the survival of elephants, and this threat is rampant throughout the entire continent (Douglas-Hamilton et al. 1992). Habitat loss, associated with anthropogenic effects is the second biggest threat to the future conservation of the species, and in the last century, large swathes of elephant natural habitats have been converted into human dominated landscapes (Esikuri 1998). This not only leads to loss, reduction, and degradation of elephant prime habitats, but curtails their free movement, reduces their home range, blocks their movement corridors and routes but increases conflicts with humans (Spinage 1990). Collectively, this matrix creates a very inhabitable and hostile environment for elephant survival and conservation programs in all its range in Africa.

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