Big Elephant Reportedly Taken in Tanzania

[Anbessa Gedai]

The below linked story dated 11 March reports a "super tusker" has recently been hunted in Tanzania.

THIRD ELEPHANT KILLED BY HUNTERS IN AMBOSELI LANDSCAPE

A third elephant has been killed by trophy hunters in northern Tanzania, in a part of the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem.

biglife.org

This story and the Joint Statement on the same site make for interesting reading.

It seems likely this might blow up into another "Cecil the Lion" story.

I find the report that "all carcasses were burned" interesting to say the least.
If true . . . why? Was there no local human population to collect and use the meat?
I believe this area is primarily Masai land and am not sure about their willingness to eat elephant. But if there was no local human population available or willing to utilize the meat, why not then allow "nature" to utilize the carcass?

I believe we'll be hearing more about this . .

 

[VertigoBE]

Looks to be an article very light on facts, very light on details. And whoever wrote it, immediately mentioned "everything was burned, so no identification possible". As whoever wrote this piece of toilet paper, likely was not invited on the hunt, all this is, is hearsay about two big elephants being shot (maybe). No pictures, no names involved, admitting it was a fully legal hunt,... Looks to me like some greenie got his panties in a twist one morning and is having a tantrum.

 

[Scott CWO]

Too bad about the meat, if it’s true, but otherwise the biological impact of hunting old males in a limited way of any species is completely biologically insignificant to the population. The narratives that these antihunters push saying that these hunts threaten the population and genetics are laughable. Because of the corrupt Kenyan government that ended legal hunting back in 1977, Kenya has very little wildlife outside of national parks. Furthermore, these anti groups in Kenya try to create unreasonable, unhunted buffers around their national parks that border Tanzania, a country that is much better at managing its wildlife. Can you imagine outlawing hunting within 50 miles of all our national parks in the USA? Ridiculous.

What’s really at play here is the sickening obsession that these groups of people feel towards certain animals that they give human names to and assign bigger roles to in biology than the overall population.

Tanzania has every right to hunt a few elephants on their side of the border. I know of one of the hunters and he is a Tanzanian.

 

[Altitude sickness]

they need to visit Kruger and see how the ecosystem is being hammered by too many elephants

 

[lawrence_court]

Anyone have any data or expertise on bulls' breeding ages/fertility and the average age of trophy bulls taken by hunting etc? That part of this article was interesting to me. Burning the meat sounds like bs.

 

[Certus]

Bad thing about taking the big tuskers is a loss of big tusk genetics. I think it was this forum I read that on.

 

[Sarg]

I would think very old & spread those genetics around a fair bit before their deaths ?

This has been well gone over on another forum & the burning stops the carcasses from being used to prison predators & a known thing evidently, not that we ever did in Zim Nam or SA, I haven't worked on Ele in Tanz.

 

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

It will also be interesting to see if these elephant were collared.

During our hunts we are running into more and more collared bulls. Every one we have encountered have ended up in a charge.

Lon

 

[Hunter-Habib]

What @Scott CWO said is 100% true. I hunted hippopotamus on land in Tanzania last year. And my white hunter was telling me about how the Kenyan crybabies always throw a huge tantrum about game legally hunted in Tanzania simply because Tanzania shares a border with Kenya. India also tried to do a similar thing with East Pakistan/Bangladesh/South Bengal quite a few times over the years simply because many of our forested areas share borders with them.

To call them “Entitled” would be the understatement of the year.

Isn’t it hilarious how the people that actually don’t have to live around wild animals on a day-to-day basis… are ironically the ones who oppose hunting the most ? And the ones with no formal education on wildlife management/conservation are the ones who cry about the perceived “ecological horrors” of hunting the most.

The old adage goes: The opinions of 10,000 people is of zero value if not a single one of them knows anything about the subject they are forming their opinions on.

My own modest bag of African elephants is limited to only two bull tuskers successfully hunted (so far) in Botswana and Zimbabwe over the years. But I definitely have plans to hunt more of them in the very near future, hopefully. Those who are opposed to elephant hunting should see what damage overpopulations of elephants have done to Zimbabwe, Botswana and (formerly) Mozambique.

 

[62flint]

It will also be interesting to see if these elephant were collared.

During our hunts we are running into more and more collared bulls. Every one we have encountered have ended up in a charge.

Lon

Not to derail this post or show my ignorance, but when those collared elephants charged what did you do? Simply stand your ground and hope it was a bluff charge or ? I would think the past experience of being collared leads to the short temper of the elephants, any data on elephants after being collared causing more issues?

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Not to derail this post or show my ignorance, but when those collared elephants charged what did you do? Simply stand your ground and hope it was a bluff charge or ? I would think the past experience of being collared leads to the short temper of the elephants, any data on elephants after being collared causing more issues?

When I was the CCF (Chief Conservator of Forests) of South Bengal, my administration collared 60 Asiatic elephants in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

We observed that after being collared, the rogue males or females with calves tend to display heightened aggression.

 

[tward1604]

"All carcasses were burned". I'm just going to throw in my two cents and opinion here.

1) Pics or it didn't happen.
2) I feel like whoever found the carcasses probably found them a while after they were dead. Lots of old carcasses look pretty rough after weeks of savaging and baking in the sun. Almost as if they'd been burned.
3) The article is definitely written as a "hunter bad, elephant going extinct" angle.
4) My only concern with the hunting of these giant bulls is that I'm not the one financially able to be doing it yet.

 

[Bert the Turtle]

I had two goats die of unknown causes and tried to burn the carcasses. It takes a shocking amount of wood to burn two goats. Love to know how they managed to burn an elephant.

 

[baxterb]

This is the third elephant in that area that was killed. The supposition is that they came from the Amboseli group in Kenya but I have yet to see any evidence of it.

Michael Matheakis issued a letter after the first two. Wasn’t all that great. You can find that on the THOA website.

I find it odd that they seem to know so much about the bulls…but not which ones they actually are.

Richard Bohnam is a good guy though, former PH, hunted in the Selous with Brian Nicholson and is married to JA Hunter’s grand-daughter. He is very deeply involved in preventing human-wildlife conflict in the are, maintaining migration corridors etc.

As most things, it’s very complicated.

 

[Hunt anything]

I read in a book somewhere that some outfitters burn elephant carcasses after the usable meat is gone to erase any sign of an elephant dying . Elephant seem to recognize what happened and some may leave the area. I believe it was in Tanzania, of course I could have this wrong.

 

[VertigoBE]

I read in a book somewhere that some outfitters burn elephant carcasses after the usable meat is gone to erase any sign of an elephant dying . Elephant seem to recognize what happened and some may leave the area. I believe it was in Tanzania, of course I could have this wrong.

I think the more practical way would be to bury them. A carcass without meat is still a bunch of bones, which 1. do not burn very well and 2. might still be found by elephants and recognized for what they are, sight or smell.

 

[Hunt anything]

I’ll try to go through my library tonight and see if I can find the source, as it did seem somewhat odd to me as well.

 

[baxterb]

I read in a book somewhere that some outfitters burn elephant carcasses after the usable meat is gone to erase any sign of an elephant dying . Elephant seem to recognize what happened and some may leave the area. I believe it was in Tanzania, of course I could have this wrong.

I believe it can also be done to prevent the remnant meat from being poisoned to kill predators, scavengers.

Poisoned meat is one of the reasons there are so few vultures in Kenya.

 

[IvW]

I quarantee all the meat was burned......100% fact.....

Over the locals barbeque fires......

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Point of clarification, as I am trying to dig around online for the background. It appears the spelling of the one fellow is Michel Matheakis, and the organization is TAHOA.