Does culling the elephants help the environment?

Answer 1

It depends on which side of the fence you are on. One line of thought believes that it is good because it eliminates stress on habitat that can't support a large population of elephants.

However, some comprehensive and a long term studies have revealed that the opposite is quite true. These studies took decades to observe and record because they looked at every possible factor associated with elephants, including their longterm presence in habitat or seasonal migrational patterns. Elephants have a profound effect on regenerating vegetation by keeping it pruned, positively impacting available water supplies, keeping harmful undergrowth down, and spreading seeds through their manure. Places where elephants no longer live have turned into water-stricken wastelands. Their ecosystems have been destroyed and drought is severe. This in turn affects other plants and animals. The presence of elephants actually affects climate.

Culling herds of elephants is not only a bad idea but it is cruel and inhumane in the extreme. Culling means that whole herds of elephants are slaughtered--usually from airplanes in the air that round them up and start firing on them. The herds are healthy--but the old, the prime, and the young are cut down indiscriminately.

Elephants die in fear, adrenaline pumping through their bodies. They are terrified and smell the death and loved ones as they are slaughtered. Orphans are left with lifelong emotional trauma; and, if they are not rescued, they are defenseless against predators. Orphaned sub-adult elephants turned into behavioral problems for other animals and for animal management. Yet, animal management people mistakenly take the position that this approach is better than elephants dying from thirst and starvation and putting more stress on the environment. But elephants know grief and loss like we humans do and they grieve for their lost loved ones for their entire lives.

It is a no brainer that it is much better to die as a part of the natural cycle of life than to die in such a way as "culling". If these glorious animals are to die, it should be as a part of the natural cycle of life and not an artificial mandate that does not take into account the harmful and devastating effect the mass deaths of these great beasts have on the environment, delicate ecosystems, and the climate.

Culling elephants has a chillingly negative effect on our world and it does nothing to help the environment.