Roadless Wilderness Area Determines Forest Elephant Movements in the Congo Basin

Quora referenced this article in "What can an elephant do?" on 08 Jul 2011 at 20:45 GMT

"Elephants can develop strong grudges and end up throwing all their anger on other animals, and end up killing and raping rhinos (seehttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?pagewanted=print) As for how elephants have learned to avoid roads, see this article, for example:http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1027-elephants_hance_wcs.html > Forest elephants in the Congo Basin have developed a new behavior: they are avoiding roads at all costs. A study published in PLoS One concludes that the behavior, which includes an unwillingness to cross roads, is further endangering the rare animals which are already threatened by poaching, development, and habitat loss. By avoiding roads, the elephants are increasingly confining themselves to smaller areas lacking enough habitat and resources. Scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Save the Elephants believe the pachyderms are avoiding roads because the highly-intelligent animals have connected roads with poachers. This is not surprising, considering a study which found that elephants that had negative encounters with humans learned rapidly to fear and avoid them, and passed this knowledge down to their young. Although the behavior probably helps the elephant avoid poaching, scientists believe the negative consequences of the behavior far outweigh the positive. Whole communities of elephants are stuck in what has been described as a “virtual prison”. The smaller the prison is, the less access to food and vital mineral deposits. Researchers worry that a lack of resources will lead to high-levels of aggression and stress in elephant communities, which is likely to cause declines in reproduction. In addition, the roadway barriers will have an impact on the ecosystem of the tropical forest, since elephants are key seed dispersal agents for regenerating forests. (journal article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003546 ) That being said, elephants can distinguish between "friendly" tribes and "hostile" tribes. I don't have the source with me right now, but I believe this comes from Cynthia Moss's book named "Elephant Memories". Basically, they are indifferent to the insignia of tribes that don't hunt them - but they get VERY neurotic when exposed to the red insignia of the tribes that do hunt them. EDIT: Foundhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3310923/Elephants-use-smell-to-identify-enemy-tribes.html (though this is through smell) Here is a sample quote: > Elephants were first presented with clean, red clothing and with red clothing that had been worn for five days by either a Maasai or a Kamba man. The Kamba people are farmers who pose little threat to the elephant. The study found that Maasai-scented clothing led the elephants to travel much faster in the first minute after they moved away. The elephants also travelled farther in the first five minutes, and took significantly longer to relax after they stopped running away. The scientists then investigated whether elephants also used garment colour in classifying a potential threat and found that the elephants reacted with aggression towards red but not to white cloth, suggesting that they associated the colour red with the Maasai. The difference in the elephants' emotional reaction to odour versus colour might relate to the amount of risk they sense in the two situations, encouraged by a particularly keen sense of smell. "With any scent of Maasai present, fear and escape reactions seem to dominate anything else," said Dr Bates. Another interesting article (with respect to moose): http://blogs.nature.com/amch/2009/08/30/bears-avoid-the-road-less-traveled > National Geographic has an interesting report on predator-prey issues in national parks: apparently pregnant moose in Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park tend to shift their activity closer to roads before giving birth, in order to avoid predation by grizzly bears. According to the results of the study, bears tend to be much more wary of roadways than moose. Grizzlies usually give keep at least a 5000 meter clearance, while moose have been recorded giving birth within a scant 45 meters of a road. One question that needs to be asked immediately is: how do we know moose are doing this to avoid predation? What if they're just not very bright and haven't figured out to avoid the roads themselves? "

Greg Laden's Blog referenced this article in "How to make an elephant turn invisible" on 18 Dec 2008 at 17:17 GMT

"The elephants in the Upper Semliki River Valley in the Eastern Congo at the time our expedition (late 1980s) are especially interesting because at the time it was believed that no elephants lived there. Yet, as part of my research, I discovered that this was inaccurate. A herd of invisible elephants roamed the park. I told almost no one at the time for fear that they would be poached. In fact, this is the first time I've mentioned it in a public forum. "

A Blog Around The Clock referenced this article in "New and Exciting in PLoS ONE" on 28 Oct 2008 at 03:03 GMT

"There are 13 new articles published Friday night and 10 new articles tonight in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my..."