Date: 24:9:98 Daily Telegraph
by David Blair, Kampala
Nature is fighting back against Uganda's ivory poachers by dramatically increasing the number of elephants born without tusks, scientists say. Researchers at the Queen Elizabeth National Park have studied the phenomenon and believe it has brought about a remarkable recovery of the elephant population after decades of uncontrolled poaching.
Dr Eve Abe, a Cambridge educated elephant specialist at the Ugandan Wildlife Authority, said: "A survey I conducted found that up to 30 per cent of a sample of adult elephants in the Queen Elizabeth Park do not have tusks." Dr Abe's latest report found that 15.5 per cent of the whole female population were tuskless. In the male elephant population the level was 9.5 per cent. A study of the same area in 1930 found only one per cent of elephants were without ivory, due to rare mutations. Dr Abe expIained the increase as "a genetic response to the poaching problem".
Poachers targeted the tuskers and ignored those without ivory, ensuring that an unusually high number of tuskless survivors passed their genes down through the generations.
"We are left with the genes which result in elephants being born without ivory," said Dr Abe. "This is the elephant's way of saving itself from extinction." Civil war and massive poaching ravaged Uganda's elephant herd during the Seventies and Eighties. In 1963 there were 3,500 animals in the Queen Elizabeth Park, but by 1992 this had fallen to around 200.A dramatic recovery is now taking place. Today the elephant population stands at 1,200 and is growing rapidly. "Our elephant population is quickly reviving," said Anooti Latif, the park's chief warden. "This is due to reproduction, migration of animals to escape the war in the Congo but also to the decline in poaching."
As the number of tuskless elephants has risen, so poaching has declined. "Commercial poaching is now at a minimal level," Mr Latif said. "The only problem we have is poaching by the local people, mainly for food." After decades of decline, "we are beginning to be worried about having too many elephants", Mr Latif said.
Marcel Omen, a field researcher at the park, said: "In every herd you see 40 or 50 elephants without tusks. The big herds are now returning." The Wildlife Authority hopes that the return of large elephant herds to the Queen Elizabeth Park will attract an increasing number of visitors.
President Yoweri Museveni's government has made the revival of the tourist industry a high priority.