Elephants: When is Enough, Enough?

Background:

"Ultimately, if a habitat is undesirably changed by elephants, then their removal should be considered -even by culling." National Geographic (Earth Almanac)-December 1999

A large National Park in South Africa contains approximately 11,000 elephants. Management policy requires a healthy environment that can maintain a stable herd of 11,000 elephants. Each year park rangers count the elephant population. During the past 20 years whole herds have been removed to keep the population as close to 11,000 as possible. This process involved shooting (for the most part) and occasionally relocating approximately 600 to 800 elephants per year.

Recently, there has been a public outcry against the shooting of these elephants. In addition, it is no longer feasible to relocate even a small population of elephants each year. A contraceptive dart, how-ever, has been developed that can prevent a mature elephant cow from conceiving for a period of two years.