/ 25 September 1998

Poaching leads to tuskless elephant gene

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kampala | Friday 9.30pm.

A PROCESS of selection forced by poaching and hunting has resulted in elephants in western Uganda becoming “tuskless”, a scientist with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Eve Lawino Abe, said on Friday.

Some 15% of the adult female elephants in the Queen Elizabeth National Park are being born without tusks and that others have been born with one tusk, or tusks that are lighter or smaller, she said.

“The tuskless gene is something which we have done as human beings. We have removed these genes from the population,” Abe said. “Over the years animals with large tusks have been removed from the population by poachers, so you find an overall decline in tusk weight and tusk length. As a result you get the tuskless individuals having the opportunity to multiply.”

Ivory poaching in Queen Elizabeth national park had declined as a result, Abe said. “There is very little poaching right now. There are fewer elephants to take and the tusks are not good, so it is not worth the risk to take them.”

Abe’s study compared the elephant population in 1920s and 1930s with the 270-strong group now in the Queen Elizabeth park. Tuskless elephants have also been born in Zambia, where there have been equally high levels of poaching.