African Elephants

Each day I scan for news on "My Yahoo." I have it set to get news from Reuters, AP, entertainment news from various sources, Denver's "Rocky Mountain News," the Los Angeles Times, USA today, and "most emailed "stories. If I'm really motivated (rarely) I have links to the New York Times, the Austin American Statesman, and other major US Newspapers. I won't say that this assortment keeps me "well" informed, but I do have a clue what is going on in the world.

Today's Los Angeles paper had an interesting article about the elephants in South Africa.

Now we really enjoyed seeing the elephants in Zambia and Botswana. They are amazing creatures, very family oriented.



I have photos of a group of them surrounding their young one for protection.



Babies stay with the family for several years and they are a long lived species. Needless to say, elephants are large animals with large appetites. They also don't have a good digestive system, so they don't get full advantage of what they do eat. In the southern parts of Africa, there are still plenty of elephants. Unfortunately, it is a "good news, bad news" situation. It was wonderful to see the large numbers of elephants everywhere at Chobe and South Luangwa. It is incredible to see a large herd of elephants cross the river or run to the water to get their morning drink.



But . . . at places like Chobe and apparently Kruger in South Africa, there are more elephants than the environment will be able to support. You see, elephants are hard on their environment - they eat trees and tear them up in the process, they pull up grass by the roots, and they are always hungry. During the rainy season, there may be enough food, but in the dry season, they'll eat tree branches -thorns and all. And, they kill many trees in the process by tearing off too many big branches and knocking the tops of the trees off.

Even if elephants don't digest their food well, all is not lost. There are a number of animals that find their diet in the remains of the elephant dung . . . baboons and guinea fowl can be found foraging in the piles of elephant dung for the seeds that the elephants were not able to digest. So, if you control the populations of the elephants, it might have an impact on some of these other species. However, other grazing animals might benefit from better forage . . .

I'm not a wildlife biologist, but I've seen or heard from several sources that places like Chobe have more numbers of elephants currently than is advantageous for the overall ecosystem. The TImes article does a good job talking about the tough choices that will need to be made. If you have to thin the herds (yes . . . that could be one of the right things to do) then you have to thin out entire families, because they have such a strong family structure. They are trying some birth control methods. And while it is an option, it might be possible to transport elephant families to areas of Africa where elephants were once common, but have now disappeared. But that is expensive, and most African governments don't have the money to transport elephants when their people are starving, wells need to be drilled, better medical treatment and medicines are needed, and the roads are filled with pot holes.

We were in Yellowstone during the time frame when there were too many bison. Bison also are hard on their environment. And when the number of bison reaches a critical level, they start leaving the park to forage. The local ranchers get most upset, because bison carry brucellosis which in theory could be passed on to cattle which then causes major problems for the cattle industry. Once again, the alternatives are not happy. Ranchers are allowed to shoot bison that leave the park. Last summer a large herd was "hazed" back into the park. No one was happy, because the cows had calves and were rushed with helicopters and cowboys - pushed faster than their normal speed possibly causing distress.

Whether we want it or not, humans have a responsibility to manage game herds so that their long term viability is maximized. If we let animals overpopulate, they will die of illness and lack of food. And, of course, human activity has reduced the natural range for many of the large herd animals . . .

Lots of issues . . . no great solutions . . .

I'm glad to finish this piece with the encouragement that at least here in the US, young people are going to college and getting "trained" in managing the land for wildlife. Let's just hope the politics keeps the importance of healthy wildlife populations as something we as a nation and a world value.

Cowbirds & House Sparrows

I've always known I value some birds more than others. After living in the Austin area these last 37 years, I don't particularly value grackles. They've over populated, they fill the trees and utility wires, they are loud and they are very adept at surviving the urban landscape. Pigeons are another example. I actually think pigeons are beautiful birds with their irridescent feathers. But I can understand why people grow to hate them. My son's condominium porch was unusable because of the constant pigeon droppings from their perch above. Pigeons are great scavengers of the crumbs around restaurants. People living near the coast often view sea gulls as nuisances as they swoop in to find their tasty morsel off your plate in outdoor eating establishments. Signs abound - Don't feed the birds!While I find their call to be a pleasant reminder that I'm at the coast, they are certainly noisy birds. Of more concern is their aggression to other species. There are several species fighting for survival because the gulls raid the nests as part of their diet.

Starlings and house sparrows are of particular concern because they are not native to North America. Starlings were brought over by someone who wanted to introduce all the birds that were written about in Shakespeare's work. In retrospect, this was a lousy idea because starlings lay their eggs in other bird's nests. The starling babies are usually larger than the original babies and thus are able to get the food leaving mother bird feeding the starlings rather than her own babies.

Two hundred years ago there were no house sparrows in North America. Today they are one of the most abundant songbirds found in all of the 48 contiguous states. The first attempts to bring them over from Great Britain and release them in New York City were unsuccessful. However, continuing efforts in many places led to the great numbers found today. While they were brought in to control insects, they are actually seed eaters. And sadly they are in direct competition for resources for native songbirds. While sparrows are not the only cause of the declining songbird populations, cavity nesting species such as bluebirds and tree sparrows have taken big hits as the house sparrows range increased. House sparrows are particularly agressive to bluebirds killing both the babies and the parents.

Cowbirds are another problem species. While native to North America, they originally followed the large buffalo herds eating insects stirred up by the bison's hooves and grass seed. When the large herd disappeared they found domestic cattle. As Americans cleared forests to create cropland and pastureland, the cowbirds habitat grew. So, you may ask, what is the problem here. Cowbirds are parasitic. They don't build their own nests and raise they young - they lay their eggs in other bird's nests delegating all of the parenting duties to some other unsuspecting bird. And while you would think that these other birds would reject the odd bird in their nest, over 150 host species have successfully raised cowbird babies.

While part of me shudders at trapping and dispatching (euphemism for killing) these birds, I can see the real issues here. Cowbirds contribute to the decline of two species in my area - the black capped vireo and the golden cheeked warbler. Cowbird control may make the difference between whether these species survive or fade into extinction. Preservation of their habit is also critical for their survival.

My husband wrote a story about the demise of the passenger pigeon. Passenger pigeons were once the most numerous bird on earth. Because of their roosting patterns - hundreds of birds in one tree, they were easy to hunt. Between the hunting and loss of habitat as forests were cleared for farming, the birds declined. And apparently they needed the large flocks to survive, because the species declined rapidly and the last bird died in 1914.

Do we need to control the populations of these "pest" birds? Absolutely! But I certainly hope that as humans we are older and wiser such that in controlling the populations so that other birds will thrive, we pay attention to the populations of the birds we are "controlling" so that they do not become extinct when we aren't watching. Thankfully, we track bird counts much more carefully now so hopefully, we will be wise in our efforts to promote bird diversity.