Day 10: Mjejane Game Reserve

Day 10: Today we spent all day with a local ecologist.  We learned about the ecology of Kruger, as well as conservation and management of the park.  This is where we will spend some time focusing on elephant management within Kruger Park.

Kruger Park is fenced in, something Americans have trouble comprehending.  Basically the entire park is a giant zoo, where instead of fencing in the animals we fence in the people. This means that migratory populations are unable to move very far, and there is no immigration and emigration.  This can result in intense competition, or, in the case of the elephant, cause a rapid rise in the population.

Most people would then say "oh, good we like the elephants to have large numbers" but the problem that arises is that with too many elephants you get an imbalance. See, elephants have historically be present in low numbers throughout the Kruger area. They are a nomad species that tends to destroy a patch of land and then moves onto another one.  By the time the elephants have circled back to where they started the plant species in the area have recovered.  This is the natural cycle. However, if you add fences and then increase the elephant population you get elephant herds returning to a site before it can complete the regrowth cycle.  Thus elephants are slowly destroying the vegetation in Kruger.

Many management plans have discussed ways to manage the elephant population in Kruger.  In the 70's the resorted to culling the elephants.  The process was done as humanely as possible, with whole herd culled so as to not destroy the survivors.  Every part of the elephant was used by the locals living in the park. This practice was stopped in the 90's though, as managers could not tell what a good population size was. Today the elephants are left in peace as managers decide how to better handle this issue.