Long migrations no longer possible for elephants as human settlements spread. Will small, managed populations be all that is left for this intelligent, generous animal?
Elephants are endangered in all of their range states. As megaherbivores they have traditionally traveled long distances, moving to new areas to forage, allowing recently used areas to recover. In fact heir role in maintaining healthy acacia trees is just now being understood.
And its not like the elephants aren’t doing their part to peacefully coexist. In fact, a herd of elephants in Zambia has a huge safari lodge in their territory, which they have left alone. In fact when the lodge expanded, ending up between the herd and their favorite mango tree, the elephants made their way through the lobby without damaging the lodge at all. Now the people who built the lodge may have expected the elephants to go around but the lobby was on the direct route after all.
Unfortunately that’s just one fun story. The others tend to be bleaker, with elephants being harassed or killed as they attempt to travel between feeding areas. Crop raiding is viewed by humans as elephants stealing our food but would they if could still range the long miles they once did?
This is a problem that will not go away and there is no easy answer to it. In some parts of India conservation groups are working to relocate humans away from critical animal habitat but providing a wildlife corridor long enough with enough food along the way for a herd of elephants to live a relatively normal life will be much more problematic.
In the meantime it seems that saving as much land as possible for the elephants is the least we can do, as wel have yet to prove our ability to manage them well.
