Why elephant hunting has a 'drastic' impact on our global climate
The loss of elephants accelerates climate change.
22 August, 2019
Image source: Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock
- Elephants help keep the central African forests they live in healthy.
- Without elephants, the forests see a striking reduction in their carbon dioxide-storage capacity.
- Study calls elephants "natural forest managers."
<p>As long as there's profit in it — and as long as there are those who simply enjoy killing animals — we're likely to continue losing elephants, and it's a disturbing loss. </p><p>To see these endearing, intelligent creatures taken down by people — humans — is nothing short of heartbreaking. Today, new research, published in the July installement of <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0395-6" target="_blank">Nature Geoscience</a>, </em>reveals their decimation isn't just a moral issue — the loss of forest elephants damages the carbon-storage capacity of the central African forests in which they live. </p><p>The researchers write: "Large herbivores such as elephants, can have important effects on ecosystems and biogeochemical cycles."</p>
The study
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMDY0OTYxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzOTAyODIzNX0.i2SQEyRI8PiGgfyYGbR50VwopL4t1eMDStVlWtrCIk0/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=49%2C27%2C49%2C27&height=700" id="061e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1a39f6d0d0746c34109887d26ed1c6d6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Congo rainforest
Image source: Siegfried.modola/Shutterstock
<p> Led by ecologist <a href="http://berzaghi.com" target="_blank">Fabio Berzaghi</a> of <a href="https://www.lsce.ipsl.fr" target="_blank">Climate and Environmental Sciences</a> in France, researchers collected field measurements of forests in the Congo basin, comparing the tree densities and composition of areas in which elephants are still present, and areas in which they no longer live. It's estimated that the animals' overall population has been reduced 10 percent from historical levels. </p><p>What the analysis reveals is that forests in central Africa no longer home to elephants are characterized by a reduction in larger trees, and critically, fewer hard-wood trees. These trees have a more robust CO<sub>2</sub> storage capacity than soft-wood trees. </p><p> The trick to working out the impact of losing elephants is that their influence on forest ecosystems plays out over a longer term — think 100 years — than the period for which data is available. To address this, the researchers developed computer simulations that exposed changes in the way different types of trees compete for nutrient, water, and light with and without elephants. </p><p> The researchers concluded that without the creatures, some three billion tons of carbon would no longer be captured by the forests — that amount is roughly equal to France's total carbon emissions for 27 years. That's about a 7 percent reduction in the forests' ability to absorb the greenhouse gas. </p><p>Co-author <a href="https://www.cdoughty.org" target="_blank">Chris Doughty</a> sums it up <a href="https://www.lsce.ipsl.fr/Phocea/Vie_des_labos/Fait_marquant/index.php?id_news=6089" target="_blank">this way</a>: "Our simulations suggest that if elephant loss continues unabated, central African forests may release the equivalent of multiple years of fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from most countries, thus potentially accelerating climate change. Therefore, their loss could have a drastic impact both locally and on global climate." </p>How elephants change forests
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMDY0OTY4MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDgyNDIyMH0.ANVRscyUB9npgtdeWrmkDCRB83MRPY_X4x7lfPk2r6o/img.jpg?width=980" id="ec0f2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="24ecce96691df2992659f2cbd94464ee" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Image source: David JC / Shutterstock
<p> Experts already suspect this link, but the new study for the first time comprehensively quantifies it. Previous guesses about <em>how</em> elephants have such a striking effect on their habitats' biomass have focussed on seed dispersal via defecation, generally moving things around, and stepping on and crushing small trees. All of these things seem to be true. Berzaghi says, "Forest elephants are natural forest-managers that thin forests by 'pruning' or removing small trees which increases the growth of large trees and the production of wood."</p>A obvious solution
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMDY0OTYyOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2Mzc4NjMwOH0.14kUJnhCZ9e6bRCkRkhjzfRug5yaSCzR_8yeVM-xJ4M/img.jpg?width=980" id="efae9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7bc8c77c8d52ee9b0e9468d65eb40283" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Image source: GUDKOV ANDREY / Shutterstock
<p>Stop killing elephants.</p><p>"Our study shows that even at high population densities, forest elephants continue to improve the carbon storage potential of central African forests, so there is no ecological concern for their comeback," says Berzaghi. Increasing their population size in these forests carries with it no discernible risk. </p><p>Their resurgence would also confer benefits beyond better carbon storage. Study co-author <a href="https://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/biology/faculty/blake-stephen.php" target="_blank">Stephen Blake</a> notes that "Forest elephants are the gardeners and guardians of biodiversity in the Congo Basin." Their seed dispersal alone, according to the study authors, contributes to the germination of over 100 tree species that provide habitats for birds, primates, and insects.</p>
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A.I. "predator" drones can now spot and track illegal poachers
Poachers trade on a black market estimated to total $40 billion. It’s impossible to stop every poacher, but new technology could bolster the efforts of conservationists by putting a set of eyes in the sky.
05 January, 2018
U.S. Military, Creative Commons
<p dir="ltr"><span>Poaching takes a brutal toll on the world’s wildlife every year. By the thousands, rhinos are for killed for their horns, elephants for their ivory, and tigers for their bones and exotic pelts. To protect these animals, rangers and conservationists must monitor enormous swaths of land, day and night, looking for poachers who trade on a black market estimated to total $40 billion. It’s impossible to stop every poacher.</span></p><p dir="ltr"><span>New technology could bolster the efforts of conservationists, though, by putting a set of eyes in the sky. </span><a href="http://airshepherd.org/"><span>Air Shepherd</span></a><span>, a conservation group, recently field tested an AI drone system that’s able to automatically detect humans and animals through infrared thermal imaging. </span><span>The SPOT (Systematic POacher deTector) system, developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon, the University of Southern California, and Microsoft, can be operated on a common laptop with a wireless internet connection, allowing park rangers to get advanced knowledge of poachers’ movements so they can be intercepted. <span id="docs-internal-guid-43a45e79-c54b-c3d3-5cfd-37545f8264ff"><span>It could also provide park rangers a heads-up in situations where they’re heading toward a large group of armed poachers. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e2d97b2184580ba72b90667c12df3c98"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ny0XGUPpawg?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p><p dir="ltr">The researchers trained the system through <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/513696/deep-learning/" target="_blank">deep learning</a>, a branch of A.I. that seeks to enable computers to learn and recognize patterns in the world — images of animals and poachers, in this case. First, the SPOT system was shown a series of images in which humans had marked where the animals and humans were. Then, the system used that information to learn about what to look for on its mission. </p><p dir="ltr">A <a href="https://www.cais.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/spot-camera-ready.pdf" target="_blank">paper</a> published by the researchers in November, 2017 describes the deep-learning process in greater detail. </p><p><iframe frameborder="no" height="300" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/340089852&color=%23ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true&visual=true" width="100%"></p><p dir="ltr">Currently, drones are used in anti-poaching efforts. However, <span id="docs-internal-guid-43a45e79-c532-1026-0254-8d833bd3f95f">the current technology requires a human to continuously monitor a screen, often throughout an entire night, in search of poachers. This was tedious and often difficult due to the low-resolution quality video stream. The new deep-learning software automates that process, and also requires very little training for operators on the ground.</span></p><blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">“Our main goal was to assist Air Shepherd in unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV) operations and reduce the human effort needed to monitor the UAV cameras at night,” <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2017/12/29/predator-vision-drones-get-ai-to-spot-poachers/#.Wk8dGN-nGUm" target="_blank">said</a> <a href="https://feifang.info/"><span>Fei Fang</span></a>, an assistant professor at the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “In the future, we also want to automatically adjust the flight route of the UAV to automatically track the poachers.”</p>
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</div><p>The SPOT system is set to be implemented on large-scale basis in a national park in Botswana. It could also have many applications outside of conservation.</p><p> </p><blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><span>“This whole framework will be useful for security surveillance at nighttime in an industrial park or any areas that need any security surveillance,” Fang <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2017/12/29/predator-vision-drones-get-ai-to-spot-poachers/#.Wk8dGN-nGUm" target="_blank">said</a>.</span></p>
</blockquote><p dir="ltr"><em>The researchers note that their work was supported by UCAR N00173-16-2-C903, primary sponsor Naval Research Laboratory (Z17-19598). It was partially supported by the Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society Fellowship and the Viterbi School of Engineering Ph.D. Merit Top-Off Fellowship.</em></p></iframe></p>
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