The Wildlands Conservation Trust’s Biodiversity Management Support Programme is dedicated to supporting formal conservation initiatives. Wildlands works closely with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to support their management of KwaZulu-Natal’s network of conservation areas and the species residing there. This is done through the funding of projects for research, management and monitoring of threatened and endangered species, and for conservation actions for biodiversity protection.
The elephants of Tembe Elephant Park in northern Maputaland, KwaZulu Natal are part of the Maputo-Futi-Tembe Coastal Elephant Plains Population, the only elephant population indigenous to KwaZulu Natal. This group of elephants used to roam freely into Mozambique from South Africa, through what is known as the Futi corridor and into the Maputo Special Reserve, but a fence between Mozambique and South Africa along Tembe Elephant Park’s boundary was erected in 1989 after the elephants moving between the countries began showing signs of severe trauma from the war going on in Mozambique, displaying bullet wounds and snare wounds from heavy poaching. It was thought best to fence in the Tembe population, which in time grew to the now 250 – 270 elephants that are found in the 30 000 hectare reserve today.
This large population of elephants pose a number challenges for conservation. Their numbers are too many for the area they occupy, and they are impacting on the biodiversity of the sensitive sandforest vegetation of Tembe Elephant Park, which forms part of the Maputaland Centre of Plant Diversity and Endemism, as declared in 1994 by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and World Conservation Union (IUCN). This distinctive forest type is known to be restricted to northern KwaZulu Natal and southern Mozambique, and has a unique combination of plant and animal species.
Since the 1990s Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife have been working with the Mozambican government to re-establish the link between Tembe Elephant Park and the Maputo Special Reserve to restore the ancient migratory route of the elephants; this forms part of the greater Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) plans for the region. This has been a slow process, and as a holding mechanism to relieve pressure on the sandforest and control elephant numbers growing further, Wildlands Conservation Trust has funded two management interventions in Tembe, a contraception programme for the elephants, and an elephant restraining line that has been put in place, protecting a 2500 hectare area of sandforest.
In May 2007 the first group of 82 female elephants was darted with the PZP contraception vaccine. The aim is to dart roughly 80-90% of the population, in order to have 75% of the population on contraception. If a cow is already pregnant and is darted, the vaccine will not interfere with the pregnancy and the vaccine will not take effect. In October 2007, a further 79 females were darted. The process was repeated in October 2008 and October 2009, with slightly lower numbers needing to be darted in order to achieve a level of 75% of the population covered.
With the gestation period of an elephant calf being 22 months, many of the elephants darted may have been carrying and would not yet have been on contraception, but there are indications that there are now fewer calves. Leonard Muller is the Tembe Elephant Monitor, and he tracks the breeding herds and gets identities for each animal, establishing the structure of the herd in order to establish when young are born. It will take a number of years before the full effect of the programme is felt, which is why such close monitoring of the breeding herds is necessary. Tracking collars have been fitted to some of the elephant cows in order for breeding herds to be identified and monitored. Behavioural as well as habitat information is gathered this way. The contraception programme is not designed to decrease the number of elephants, but to control further growth in the population.
Dr Roelie Kloppers, Manager of the Biodiversity Management Support Programme for Wildlands Conservation Trust, said: “the work we funded in Tembe Elephant Park represents one of a series of pioneering and groundbreaking ecological interventions supported by the Trust. We aimed to support the scientific community in developing new insights into elephant management that could be duplicated throughout the region. At this stage the results are very encouraging and the feedback we have received illustrates the value of supporting scientific input into advancing the management of biodiversity.”
Not only is the contraception programme helping to manage elephant numbers as a holding mechanism for later expansion of the range when the population might again be allowed to grow, but the biodiversity conservation objective of reducing the effect of the elephant population on the sandforest in Tembe is being achieved. Vegetation, animal and bird surveys are yet to be completed for exact results to be established, but it is clear that the sandforest is making a recovery from the damage caused by the elephants.
WILDTRUST (registered as the Wildlands Conservation Trust - IT No: 4329/1991/PMB)