The Impact of Climate Change and Habitat Loss on African Elephants in the Greater Virunga Landscape: A Dynamic Simulation Study

February 4, 2024 / activist360

Artwork for Bill Madden’s music video “Mother”. The artwork was created by Kasia Haldas. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

Introduction

African elephants, the majestic giants of the savannah and forests, are facing unprecedented threats from habitat loss, human-wildlife conflicts, and the looming specter of climate change. A recent study by Simon Nampindo and Timothy O. Randhir, published on January 31, 2024, in PLOS Sustainability & Transformation, uses dynamic modeling to unravel how these factors are influencing elephant populations in the Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL), a biodiversity hotspot in Africa.

Greater Virunga Landscape with vegetation map.

Greater Virunga Landscape (GVL) with vegetation map. Developed by Simon Nampindo and Timothy O. Randhir in collaboration with the WCS Uganda program. The GVL straddles Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Understanding the African Elephant Crisis

The African elephant, once roaming freely across vast stretches of the continent, is now confined to fragmented habitats, with populations experiencing alarming declines. The 2016 IUCN African Elephant Status Report highlighted a 30% decline over ten years, with human activities and climate change at the heart of this crisis. Elephants play a pivotal role in their ecosystems, from seed dispersal to landscape modification, making their decline a matter of global environmental concern.

The Study: A Closer Look

Nampindo and Randhir’s study is a testament to innovative conservation science, employing dynamic simulation models to analyze the effects of changing climates, habitat loss, and water resource availability on the age-class structure of elephant populations. Their research, underpinned by data from the GVL — an area spanning Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo — provides a comprehensive understanding of how different age classes of elephants respond to environmental stressors. This approach is crucial for developing targeted conservation strategies.

Conceptual model for population dynamics of elephants in GVL, linking climate, habitat changes, and resource variability to population shifts over 50 years.

Key Findings

The study reveals several critical insights:

Climate Change Impacts: Older elephants are more vulnerable to climate change, affecting their survivability and migration patterns. This vulnerability is attributed to direct impacts, such as disease and physiological stress, and indirect ones, like habitat alteration and drought-induced deaths such as fire and risk of predation.
Habitat and Water Resources: An improvement in habitat quality and water availability positively affects elephant populations, emphasizing the need for conservation efforts that enhance these critical resources.
Future Projections: Without mitigating environmental and anthropogenic stressors, the GVL could see a demographic shift towards younger elephants, potentially impacting the long-term viability of these populations.

Conservation Implications

The research underscores the necessity for a transboundary management approach, incorporating climate change mitigation, cooperation among conservation agencies, and partnerships with relevant stakeholders. It also highlights the importance of understanding age-specific responses of elephants to environmental changes, facilitating the development of comprehensive conservation strategies that address water availability and habitat quality.

To ensure the survival of African elephants in the face of climate change and habitat loss, the study recommends:

Enhanced Transboundary Cooperation: Strengthening collaboration across borders to ensure cohesive conservation efforts.
Habitat Restoration and Protection: Implementing measures to improve habitat quality and connectivity, including reforestation and the establishment of wildlife corridors.
Community Engagement: Involving local communities in conservation efforts, providing them with sustainable livelihood options to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.

The study by Nampindo and Randhir offers a critical roadmap for the conservation of African elephants in the Greater Virunga Landscape. By focusing on the dynamic interplay between climate change, habitat loss, and elephant population dynamics, their work provides valuable insights for crafting resilient conservation strategies. As we face the challenges of a changing planet, such research is indispensable for guiding our efforts to preserve the natural world and its magnificent inhabitants.

Final Thoughts

This comprehensive study not only advances our understanding of the intricate relationships between elephants and their environment but also serves as a clarion call for urgent, collaborative conservation action. The fate of Africa’s elephants hangs in the balance, and it is incumbent upon us all to heed this call and act decisively to secure their future.

The Neural Cruelty of Captivity

October 5, 2020 / activist360 / Leave a comment

Keeping large mammals in zoos and aquariums damages their brains

*Photograph of an elephant brain. Dr. Paul Manger/ University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, CC BY-ND*

By Bob Jacobs, Colorado College.

Hanako, a female Asian elephant, lived in a tiny concrete enclosure at Japan’s Inokashira Park Zoo for more than 60 years, often in chains, with no stimulation. In the wild, elephants live in herds, with close family ties. Hanako was solitary for the last decade of her life.

Kiska, a young female orca, was captured in 1978 off the Iceland coast and taken to Marineland Canada, an aquarium and amusement park. Orcas are social animals that live in family pods with up to 40 members, but Kiska has lived alone in a small tank since 2011. Each of her five calves died. To combat stress and boredom, she swims in slow, endless circles and has gnawed her teeth to the pulp on her concrete pool.

Unfortunately, these are common conditions for many large, captive mammals in the “entertainment” industry. In decades of studying the brains of humans, African elephants, humpback whales and other large mammals, I’ve noted the organ’s great sensitivity to the environment, including serious impacts on its structure and function from living in captivity.

Hanako, an Asian elephant kept at Japan’s Inokashira Park Zoo; and Kiska, an orca that lives at Marineland Canada. One image depicts Kiska’s damaged teeth. Elephants in Japan (left image), Ontario Captive Animal Watch (right image), CC BY-ND

Affecting health and altering behavior

It is easy to observe the overall health and psychological consequences of life in captivity for these animals. Many captive elephants suffer from arthritis, obesity or skin problems. Both elephants and orcas often have severe dental problems. Captive orcas are plagued by pneumonia, kidney disease, gastrointestinal illnesses and infections.

Many animals try to cope with captivity by adopting abnormal behaviors. Some develop “stereotypies,” which are repetitive, purposeless habits such as constantly bobbing their heads, swaying incessantly or chewing on the bars of their cages. Others, especially big cats, pace their enclosures. Elephants rub or break their tusks.

Changing brain structure

Neuroscientific research indicates that living in an impoverished, stressful captive environment physically damages the brain. These changes have been documented in many species, including rodents, rabbits, cats and humans.

Although researchers have directly studied some animal brains, most of what we know comes from observing animal behavior, analyzing stress hormone levels in the blood and applying knowledge gained from a half-century of neuroscience research. Laboratory research also suggests that mammals in a zoo or aquarium have compromised brain function.

This illustration shows differences in the brain’s cerebral cortex in animals held in impoverished (captive) and enriched (natural) environments. Impoverishment results in thinning of the cortex, a decreased blood supply, less support for neurons and decreased connectivity among neurons. Arnold B. Scheibel, CC BY-ND

Subsisting in confined, barren quarters that lack intellectual stimulation or appropriate social contact seems to thin the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain involved in voluntary movement and higher cognitive function, including memory, planning and decision-making.

There are other consequences. Capillaries shrink, depriving the brain of the oxygen-rich blood it needs to survive. Neurons become smaller, and their dendrites – the branches that form connections with other neurons – become less complex, impairing communication within the brain. As a result, the cortical neurons in captive animals process information less efficiently than those living in enriched, more natural environments.

*An actual cortical neuron in a wild African elephant living in its natural habitat compared with a hypothesized cortical neuron from a captive elephant. Bob Jacobs, CC BY-ND*

Brain health is also affected by living in small quarters that don’t allow for needed exercise. Physical activity increases the flow of blood to the brain, which requires large amounts of oxygen. Exercise increases the production of new connections and enhances cognitive abilities.

In their native habits these animals must move to survive, covering great distances to forage or find a mate. Elephants typically travel anywhere from 15 to 120 miles per day. In a zoo, they average three miles daily, often walking back and forth in small enclosures. One free orca studied in Canada swam up to 156 miles a day; meanwhile, an average orca tank is about 10,000 times smaller than its natural home range.

Disrupting brain chemistry and killing cells

Living in enclosures that restrict or prevent normal behavior creates chronic frustration and boredom. In the wild, an animal’s stress-response system helps it escape from danger. But captivity traps animals with almost no control over their environment.

These situations foster learned helplessness, negatively impacting the hippocampus, which handles memory functions, and the amygdala, which processes emotions. Prolonged stress elevates stress hormones and damages or even kills neurons in both brain regions. It also disrupts the delicate balance of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that stabilizes mood, among other functions.

In humans, deprivation can trigger psychiatric issues, including depression, anxiety, mood disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder. Elephants, orcas and other animals with large brains are likely to react in similar ways to life in a severely stressful environment.

Damaged wiring

Captivity can damage the brain’s complex circuitry, including the basal ganglia. This group of neurons communicates with the cerebral cortex along two networks: a direct pathway that enhances movement and behavior, and an indirect pathway that inhibits them.

The repetitive, stereotypic behaviors that many animals adopt in captivity are caused by an imbalance of two neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin. This impairs the indirect pathway’s ability to modulate movement, a condition documented in species from chickens, cows, sheep and horses to primates and big cats.

*The cerebral cortex, hippocampus and amygdala are physically altered by captivity, along with brain circuitry that involves the basal ganglia. Bob Jacobs, CC BY-ND*

Evolution has constructed animal brains to be exquisitely responsive to their environment. Those reactions can affect neural function by turning different genes on or off. Living in inappropriate or abusive circumstance alters biochemical processes: It disrupts the synthesis of proteins that build connections between brain cells and the neurotransmitters that facilitate communication among them.

There is strong evidence that enrichment, social contact and appropriate space in more natural habitats are necessary for long-lived animals with large brains such as elephants and cetaceans. Better conditions reduce disturbing sterotypical behaviors, improve connections in the brain, and trigger neurochemical changes that enhance learning and memory.

The captivity question

Some people defend keeping animals in captivity, arguing that it helps conserve endangered species or offers educational benefits for visitors to zoos and aquariums. These justifications are questionable, particularly for large mammals. As my own research and work by many other scientists shows, caging large mammals and putting them on display is undeniably cruel from a neural perspective. It causes brain damage.

Public perceptions of captivity are slowly changing, as shown by the reaction to the documentary “Blackfish.” For animals that cannot be free, there are well-designed sanctuaries. Several already exist for elephants and other large mammals in Tennessee, Brazil and Northern California. Others are being developed for large cetaceans.

Perhaps it is not too late for Kiska.

Dr. Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project and a former senior lecturer at Emory University, contributed to this article.

Bob Jacobs, Professor of Neuroscience, Colorado College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

When People Turn to Nature to Solve Human Problems, Sometimes Nature Benefits, Too

August 18, 2020 / activist360 / Leave a comment

Bioinspired solutions can be good not only for people, but also for the organisms offering the inspiration.

By Rachel Crowell, ensia (CC BY-ND 3.0)

Elephant photo by elCarito on Unsplash — *Photo by elCarito on Unsplash*

August 18, 2020 — African bush elephants can break through fences and destroy crops or large trees — including iconic and endangered ones. These missteps could be deadly to the elephants as people who see them as a dangerous nuisance demand they be killed.

However, a natural and non-lethal elephant deterrent exists: African honeybees. Elephants are scared by the sight, sound and even smell of the bees and their hives. Farmers and conservation organizations such as Save the Elephants have installed hives along key fence lines. But the bees’ food and water requirements can make the hives costly to maintain.

What if, wondered Mark Wright, an insect ecologist and integrated pest management expert at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, you could design something that would mimic the pheromones emitted by alarmed honeybees, thereby also deterring elephants? Wright is developing a blend of substances found in honeybee alarm pheromones that could produce that effect.

Wright says he’s still perfecting the mixture — which uses synthetic versions of the compounds rather than extracting them from bees — so it can evoke a “consistent and gentle” deterrence response. “You don’t want 50 elephants storming around and crashing into things,” he says. However, if the blend isn’t bothersome enough, the elephants won’t leave.

Innovators have been using nature as a role model for decades. Sometimes the invention just benefits people. But, as in the case of Wright’s bee-inspired elephant repellent, sometimes nature can benefit, too.

Possible Payback

So-called “bioinspired design” often starts with identifying plants or animals that excel in certain functions, says Marc Weissburg, co-director of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Biologically Inspired Design. For instance, pitcher plant rims are wildly slippery, earthworms’ bendy bodies make them top-notch burrowers, and tammar wallabies’ leg tendons are optimized to power their repeated hopping.

Next, researchers and designers investigate problems the observed capability might solve. This approach does not always include an aim to benefit nature, too. “People are just getting their minds wrapped around how to approach this from the standpoint of intentionally designing something, using biology, for a specific [human-benefiting] purpose,” Wright says.

In such instances, innovations can still end up indirectly helping the organisms that inspired them, however. Take Werewool. The startup is working on using proteins found in jellyfish, coral and other organisms to create fibers with certain properties (such as color, fluorescence or stretch) built into them, according to co-founder and CEO Chui-Lian Lee. Werewool researchers have created a prototype of a coral-inspired, dye-free fiber that’s naturally colorful and fluorescent.

Since the fibers aren’t yet available commercially, it’s too soon to measure their impact. However, Lee and her colleagues say they are designing their products with the goal of reducing fashion-related pollution, including the release of microplastics, harmful dyes and finishing products into waterways. That could ultimately lead full circle to reducing harm to coral and jellyfish.

Baked In

In the case of ECOncrete, the links between nature-inspired innovations and benefits for nature are baked in from the start. The company manufactures artificial tidepools, seawalls and other products inspired by structures found in the natural world. These products, which are used to provide structure in coastal, marine and urban environments, are designed to be hospitable to specific ocean organisms, says Shimrit Perkol-Finkel, a marine ecologist and co-founder and CEO of the company. The structures provide storm buffering and help limit coastal erosion, helping communities avoid or reduce flooding and other storm damage.

Perkol-Finkel says that ECOncrete’s proprietary concrete mixture makes structures stronger and more durable than those made from traditional concrete, which benefits humans. She says that the structures have complex surfaces with textures and other design elements that are made to mimic natural features that are hospitable to certain species for which natural habitat is shrinking. This complexity is also less hospitable to invasive species, enabling these structures to increase biodiversity while discouraging the presence of nuisance organisms.

“We design for the marine life,” Perkol-Finkel says. “That was the goal.”

Clear and Direct Benefits

At least one organization has found the perceived limited direct benefit to organisms to be a deterrent to focusing on nature-inspired design. San Diego Zoo Global (SDZG), a nonprofit that operates the San Diego Zoo and related facilities, once had its own center for bioinspiration. The center closed after SDZG pivoted its focus from being inspired by nature to benefiting nature directly.

Nevertheless, interest remains strong in using nature’s inspiration to create the innovations of tomorrow. And for at least some, those creations will also benefit nature in return.

Editor’s note: Rachel Crowell wrote this story as a participant in the Ensia Mentor Program. The mentor for the project was Hillary Rosner. In line with Ensia’s ethics statement, we disclose that Ensia editor in chief Mary Hoff in another capacity recently wrote a piece for AskNature about coral proteins. Rachel Crowell included both in this story with no input from Ensia staff, and the circumstance is purely coincidental.