One must also understand that the Number One wildlife management objective of a national park is the maintenance of its species diversity (the healthy maintenance of all the plants and animals that occur naturally within its ecosystems). Nothing else is of greater importance. And excessive elephant populations destroy biodiversity. So maintaining excessive elephant populations is holistically bad for wildlife management in Africa.
In southern Africa – south of the Zambezi and Cunene rivers – practically every elephant population is excessive; habitats are being ever more greatly destroyed every year; and biological diversities are crashing.
Elephant populations have the capacity to double their numbers every 10 years. The animal rightists repudiate this statistic. But it’s true. Botswana’s elephants numbered 54 500 in 1990; by the year 2000 they numbered 120 600; and by 2013 they were up to 207 000.
In Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park elephant numbers have increased from 3500 in 1960 to over 50 000 today (despite constant population reduction); and the Gonarezhou National Park’s elephants increased from 2500 in 1972 to an estimated 14 000 today (despite irregular population reduction). In South Africa’s Kruger National Park the elephant population increased from 7000 in 1994 to some 22 000 today (and 95 percent of the park’s vital top canopy trees have been destroyed). And all these populations are still increasing.
So the restrictions that Barrack Obama recently placed on the movement of ivory artefacts across state boundaries within the U.S. – ostensibly to save the African elephant – compared to the above facts – is pathetic; and it helps the elephant not one little bit. And all the presidential hype and hysteria was based on the lies contained in animal rightist propaganda!
What would help Africa’s wildlife would be if Americans woke up to the fact they have been duped out of hundreds of millions of US dollars every year – to prop up the animal rights confidence industry. Practically none of that money gets to Africa. None of it is used to help save the elephant. Most people hate to think that they have been conned out of their hard earned cash! But THAT is a fact beyond any doubt! Let us hope, therefore, that Americans learn from their own mistakes, and that common sense will eventually prevail.
If Americans truly want to save Africa’s elephants, rhinos, and lions, all they have to do is to convince their political masters to leave Africa to practice its own brand of conservation without interference from the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. Africa doesn’t need western gunboats firing salvoes over its bows all the time – telling us what we can and cannot do with our own wildlife.
And CITES must go! CITES is the biggest impediment to best practice wildlife management in Africa. CITES must go because it is now the biggest weapon the animal rightists have ever had under their control. And those pernicious people are BAD NEWS for Africa’s wildlife.
People everywhere must also learn that responsible trade is not bad for wildlife. It is, in fact, the one thing that can truly save Africa’s wildlife into posterity.
Ron Thomson. CEO. THE TRUE GREEN ALLIANCE (South Africa). 31.01.2017
