Ivory POACHING
Ivory poaching has dramatically influenced the social structure of these African elephant populations. From the time span of 1979 - 1987, the population of African elephants decreased from 1.3 million to fewer than 600,000. Poachers mainly target adult bulls, and large females for their valuable tusks (Gobush et al., 2009). As poachers kill more large males, there will be no mature bulls to interfere with young male’s abnormal musth state and the young elephants will be more aggressive and uncontrolled and causing problems similar to one in Pilanesberg Park (Slotow et al., 2000).
More matriarchs have also become victim to poachers because they have larger tusks and are easier to spot than males who travel alone. When elephant social groups lose their matriarchs, their social structure is heavily disturbed. Nursing elephants will die with their mothers, and orphaned offspring will form atypical groups with unrelated females or live alone. The strong bond formed by elephants with one another is also influenced. One study demonstrated that in a poached population, only half of the females formed strong bonds with other females, and their bond strength was substantially lower in comparison to an unpoached population of elephants (Gobush et al., 2009).
Because matriarchs and bulls are the source of all social knowledge, losing these elephants from the population will lead to an atypical social group dynamics, impair social function, increase physiological stress, and in the long term – reduce reproductive success among the elephants that are left behind (Gobush et al., 2008).