South Africa increased its CITES elephant export quota from 200 to 300 tusks (100 elephants to 150 elephants) and Mozambique increased its CITES elephant export quota from 80 tusks (40 animals) to 120 tusks (60 animals). The increases were posted to the CITES website on June 6.
-------------------- ALL MEN DIE, BUT FEW MEN TRULY LIVE..
From elephants in South Africa to alligators in Florida and even the newly reintroduced plains bison in Saskatchewan, wildlife managers accustomed to dealing with endangered species are started to confront some that have become "hyper-abundant." Animals once in grave danger have become a threat to others.
It's because humans have dramatically changed the ecosystem, he and others argue, that many systems must be managed, perhaps in perpetuity. "Nobody likes to kill animals," Mr. Woodley says, "but I think there is a pretty good understanding now that in certain cases we do have to cull animals for the greater good of ecosystem health."
That's the conclusion South Africa came to last year when deciding to cull the elephant, an animal endangered in much of the rest of the continent. After a 14-year moratorium on hunting, the elephant population of Kruger National Park had roughly doubled to 14,000, park spokesman William Mabasa says.
Transporting elephants to other countries is prohibitively expensive, but South Africa has little suitable habitat left.
The cull has yet to begin, but retired Kruger elephant specialist Ian Whyte says it's for the best. "Elephants have big appetites," he told a local newspaper. "You can utilize an area to maintain biodiversity, or else you have a purely elephant sanctuary. You can't have both."
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