Elephant Relocation Scheme Fails to Prevent Deaths
by Stephanie Pappas and LiveScience Dec. 11, 2012
Summary: The relocation of pachyderms away from humans has failed in Sri Lanka. Researchers have found that instead of enjoying their new home, the relocated elephants wander back to where they used to be. This is a huge problem, because the relocated elephants that tend to wander around die more frequently than the elephants that were left in their original range. Also, the relocated elephants kill more people than the elephants that stayed put. According to Smithsonian, about 70 people and 200 asian elephants die each year because of human-pachyderm conflict in Sri Lanka. A possible solution was to move the pachyderm elephants to a place that is safe, such as national parks. Relocating the elephants to national parks not only got two elephants killed, but it has also made them to wander back to where they normally live. This causes the relocated elephants to have conflicts with humans who live in Sri Lanka, because they kill villagers and destroying their houses. Researchers claim that minimizing crop-raiding can be more effective than moving the elephants.
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Source: Scientific AmericanTM
Reflection: My thought about this article is that I didn't know that if you relocate a group of elephants, they would tend to wander off or go back to where they used to live! It sounds like it was a watse of time relocating the elephants to another place, because they wouldn't stay and for the ones who did would get kill. People shouldn't live in areas or properties that don't beling to them, because it can create problems with other animal species that depend on that community.
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