Sad reason behind strange new behaviour of elephants

LIKE escaped convicts, elephants in eastern Africa have learned to travel at night and hide during the day to avoid poachers who are hunting tuskers into extinction, researchers reported.


Normally elephants forage for food and migrate in daylight, while resting under cover of darkness.

But a sharp increase in illegal hunting driven by the global trade in ivory has forced the massive land mammals — against their nature — to up-end their usual habits.

“As most poaching occurs during the daytime, their transition to nocturnal behaviour appears to be a direct result of prevailing poaching levels,” said Festus Ihwagi, a researcher at the University of Twente in The Netherlands.

In an upcoming study, Ihwagi details his findings, based on data gathered from 60 elephants in northern Kenya tracked with GPS devices for up to three years during the period 2002 to 2012.

Working with the NGO Save the Elephants, which has fitted more than 100 of the animals with GPS collars, Ihwagi monitored the movements of 28 females and 32 males in and around the Laikipa-Samburu ecosystem.


More at source
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/the-sad-reason-behind-strange-new-behaviour-of-elephants-in-east-africa/news-story/c77e2c57dcf9d3aee1040372b534c2d4

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

As well as shooting the poachers,  it's also well past time that some of those African guvm'nts started executing the merchants and traders who deal in Ivory, Scrimshaw from whales, and other illegal products...

And a few Western and Asian authorities should be taking stronger action against the industry as well --  instead of only petty fines and sentences, or worse still turning a blind eye in many cases..

nicko wrote:Just my opinion,   but I watched the burning of tons of Ivory, and thought why not put it all on the market very cheaply?   With that amount swamping the market the price would fall so much it would not be worth Poaching any more!  Would that be correct?

veya_victaous wrote:

LIKE escaped convicts, elephants in eastern Africa have learned to travel at night and hide during the day to avoid poachers who are hunting tuskers into extinction, researchers reported.


Normally elephants forage for food and migrate in daylight, while resting under cover of darkness.

But a sharp increase in illegal hunting driven by the global trade in ivory has forced the massive land mammals — against their nature — to up-end their usual habits.

“As most poaching occurs during the daytime, their transition to nocturnal behaviour appears to be a direct result of prevailing poaching levels,” said Festus Ihwagi, a researcher at the University of Twente in The Netherlands.

In an upcoming study, Ihwagi details his findings, based on data gathered from 60 elephants in northern Kenya tracked with GPS devices for up to three years during the period 2002 to 2012.

Working with the NGO Save the Elephants, which has fitted more than 100 of the animals with GPS collars, Ihwagi monitored the movements of 28 females and 32 males in and around the Laikipa-Samburu ecosystem.


More at source
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/the-sad-reason-behind-strange-new-behaviour-of-elephants-in-east-africa/news-story/c77e2c57dcf9d3aee1040372b534c2d4