The elephants of South Africa; Namibia; Botswana and Zimbabwe (particularly) are grossly in excess of their national park habitat elephant carrying capacities. In all these countries the elephant population numbers are ALL “more than 10 TIMES” bigger than their habitats can sustainably support; and that state of affairs has been developing for the last 50/60 years.
The consequence is that the elephants have now totally demolished the woodland habitats in their game reserve sanctuaries – by upwards of 90 percent. In the case of Kruger National Park in South Africa the national park’s ‘top-canopy trees’ (in its once extensive woodland habitats – not long ago widespread across the entire 8000 square miles (20 000 sq kms) of the game reserve’s extent) – have been reduced in number by “more than” 95 percent (since 1960).
