Rules of habitat use by elephants Loxodonta africana in southern Africa
According to a study published in 2008 in Cambridge Journal Oryx (The International Journal of Conservation), African elephants (Loxodonta africana) of different ecosystems exhibit similarities in habitat use, known as "rules."
Elephants optimize trade-offs between benefiting from high-quality resources and costs to find them. They seek out places with high proportions of vegetation, especially when neighboring areas have low vegetative cover. Also, elephants avoid human settlements (when present), and cows more so than bulls. Put in caricature, elephants prefer to move little, drink easily, eat well, and avoid people.
Since managers in southern Africa are concerned that continually increasing elephant populations will degrade ecosystems, and bearing in mind that culling, translocation and birth control are flawed solutions, a possible alternative is to develop management plans based on knowledge of the rules of habitat use by elephants.
If one makes more areas available, elephants will probably favor areas near water with high vegetative cover (of many different types) and away from people. Managers can oblige elephants’ preferences by supplying them. If so, they should anticipate higher impacts to neighbouring vegetation.
Photo credit: ©Morkel Erasmus | African elephant in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe.