Trophy hunting - Problem animal control - Population reduction - Cropping

Management interventions required in the north-west of Namibia are minimal at this stage: elephant densities are low and the population is in the process of re-colonising its former range. Perhaps the only agenda for a co-management institution would be the allocation of trophy quotas.

In the north-east of Namibia, the immigration of large numbers of elephant from Botswana, habitat modification in national parks and escalating levels of conflict between humans and elephants may require significant management interventions. The co-management institutions13 in the north-east would need to address trophy hunting quotas, problem animal control and population reductions.

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Trophy hunting

In the absence of any other management (including problem animal control), the proportion of an elephant population which can be hunted for trophies is about 0.5%. These trophies would all be males over 30 years old. If the north-eastern population is about 16,000 animals, the maximum trophy quota would be about 80 animals of which 50 would come from the Caprivi and 30 from the Khaudum/Nyae Nyae area.

These might be the quotas set in 2005. Under adaptive management, the ages of the elephants killed should be monitored and, in succeeding years, the quotas should be adjusted upwards or downwards according to the criterion that there should be some animals amongst those killed which have reached an age of 40 years. If monitoring were based on tusk weights (which is considerably easier), there should be several tusks greater than 22kg in the quota and the average tusk weight should not be much less than 19kg.

Under a co-management system, it would not be necessary to allocate hunting quotas to particular conservancies or protected areas. The total income from all the trophies could be shared according to landholdings (or other agreed criteria) at the end of the year.

The sustainable offtake of trophy hunting quotas is affected by any other management interventions taking place at the same time (problem animal control and culling) and the effects are discussed below.

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Problem animal control

If problem animal control is restricted mostly to male elephants 15 years and older, the maximum sustainable offtake is about 1.5% of the total population. As the problem animal offtake is increased the trophy hunting quota must be reduced to remain sustainable and when the level of PAC reaches 1.5% there are insufficient animals reaching an age of 30 years to allow sport hunting (Table X).

Table 1: Relationship between trophy hunting quota and problem animal offtake in percentage of the total population

The present system for dealing with problem elephants is clearly unworkable, particularly in the Caprivi. Elephants identified as problem animals must first be offered to a hunting concessionaire. The professional hunter is not allowed to shoot after dark which means that on most occasions the offending animal will not be killed in the act of crop raiding. If he is unsuccessful in selling the animal as a trophy to a hunting client, MET staff may then destroy the animal - but only if a qualified staff member is in the area and only after approval by the Permanent Secretary.

Under a fully devolved co-management system each stakeholder might be responsible for PAC in his/her landholding or authorised control officers would be present as needed in different parts of the area. In the late 1960s and early 1970s a PAC system which was in place in the Caprivi where Chiefs Mamili and Moreletsatani (Salambala) had their own hunters authorised to hunt problem animals and obtain meat for feasts. These hunters were armed with .458 and .375 rifles. A quota was issued to each chief, problem animals were reported and dealt with within 24 hours, the tusks from the problem animal were registered, sold on the chiefs' behalf and the funds were deposited into the chiefs' account for community development. The system worked well (B. Beytell, pers. comm.). Being aware of the impact of problem animal control on trophy hunting, the co-management committee might prescribe guidelines to minimise the number of animals killed.

If commodity markets for elephant products were functioning properly, there would be little financial advantage in selling an elephant as a sport hunting trophy - the same animal would earn as much killed as a problem animal.

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Population reduction

Culling entails the removal of entire elephant herds with the aim of reducing population numbers or limiting the rate of population increase. By removing entire herds the age structure of the female segment of the age pyramid remains unaltered and no selective pressures arise from the practice. The overall age structure of the population does become skewed in favour of males and this permits a higher percentage quota for trophy hunting although it does not result in a greater number of male trophies over a period of years than would be obtained from a population which is not subjected to culling (because of population growth).

For a population growing at 4.6% per annum (a typical growth rate for savanna elephant), an offtake of 3% of the total population will stabilise numbers: a higher percentage offtake will reduce the population. This entails an offtake of about 30 animals for every 1,000 animals in the population. If culling is combined with trophy hunting, trophy hunting quotas can be raised to 1% of the population and an additional 10 males over the age of 30 years would also be removed annually.

If the sole consideration of the Ministry were to limit vegetation damage inside the national parks, it might not seem necessary to confer with other stakeholders on any management decision to reduce elephant numbers in state protected areas. However, given the movements in and out of the parks, a more sensible strategy is to manage the population both inside and outside parks with the other stakeholders for multiple objectives.

There are no simple prescriptions for the 'correct elephant densities' either to conserve biological diversity or reduce levels of human/elephant conflict (page 6). The worst mistake that could be made would be to attempt to hold the elephant population of the north-east at some constant level or to attempt to maintain a constant harvest from it - because this has adverse effects on ecosystem resilience. The rational approach is adaptive management (Holling 1976). Learning will only occur by exploiting the resource (Hilborn & Ludwig 1993) and monitoring progress towards the desired situation. By joining with other stakeholders in deciding the nature and extent of any management interventions, the Ministry will place itself in a strong political position both nationally and internationally. The implementation of any population reductions will not be difficult to defend since the decisions will have been taken democratically.

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Cropping

Namibia has stated firmly in its submissions to CITES (MET 2004) that no elephant will be killed for the purpose of realising its value in the ivory trade. This is a noble sentiment but it might require some justification once MET representatives are in a co-management forum with the primary stakeholders.

Throughout Africa elephants have been killed by local peoples for both ivory and meat for centuries. One of the primary reasons that colonial powers sought territories in Africa was because of the natural wealth of ivory (Parker 2004). Ansell (1960, page 50) remarks on the damage to crops in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia, but notes that elephant were seen by local people as valuable animals because of the meat they provided. IFor example, in the 1960s every local person in the Luangwa Valley received a half-pound of meat weekly from elephant control.

MET should enter any co-management forum with no preconceived moral position on elephant. Having accepted that the solutions to the current 'elephant problem' may lie in innovative management inspired by the values of local people, a tabula rasa is needed to accept with an open mind all options presented.