John,

As ever, you raise great points...... My replies are "as I believe". As I've said, I don't consider myself a fundi so will only voice my opinion. Here goes:-

The other bulls seem to have a far less close relationship and from my experience of their behaviour they don't seem to be anywhere near as disturbed by the shooting of another bull as cows are disturbed by the shooting of other cows.... This also seems to be the case when an Elephant is darted. The darted bull goes down and the other bulls just back off and watch..... do the same with a cow and the other cows have to be watched very carefully indeed......... actually, sometimes you feel you need eyes in your ass!

I don't know if mental anguish is the right term..... that to me is transferring human emotions to animals - but I would go as far as saying it changes their future behaviour...... of course, it could just be that the bulls have bad memories

Personally, I question that a lack of tusks must be a genetic weakness...... it could just be evolution at work equally it might not be...... but as I'm not a zoologist I don't know.

I understand the desire to feed any locals with the surplus meat - but this won't apply to everywhere in Africa. Selous for example doesn't allow human habitation in the reserve. I don't know much about the economics of skins etc so can't comment. Ganyana might be able to advise us on this.

To me, the culling of an entire herd results in the highly unpleasant fact of taking out the young - sadly, the ones that I know that have been spared and translocated elsewhere have always ended up as "problem" Elephants and from my experience it's more humane not to try to save them in the first place........ However, I appreciate it must be the most God awful thing to do to have to shoot them...... but life sometimes isn't pleasant.......

There's lots of talk about PAC Elephants but I've always found that real (persistent) problem Elephants tend to be bulls, usually young/adolescent bulls...... but others might have had other experiences. The first priority of cow Elephants is to breed and look after their young..... hence they're usually pretty damn wary of taking the kids into an area that might cause them problems. I've personally never known of cows that cause persistent problems..... but the word problem can mean different things to different people. Some will say an Elephant that opens a water pipe once will make it a problem Elephant to be shot - others will say it's a thirsty Elephant that doesn't have enough water available to it.

I also agree with your sentiments about the unpleasantness of a cull...... which is why I personally believe it's not a place for a tourist hunter and should only ever be done by professionals...... to say nothing of the fact that it's bloody dangerous........

However, as I said, I'm all for the sport hunting of bulls - although I would obviously prefer the costs to be cheaper.

Tanzania has a minimum size/weight requirement for tusks which I think is a good idea. It makes it tough for the PH but it succeeds in conserving the numbers and quality of the Elephants.