Tanzania elephant population declines by 60 per cent: survey

Tanzania has released elephant population estimates from a country-wide aerial survey which shows that elephant population has declined by 60 per cent since 2009.

Lazaro Nyalandu, Tanzania’s Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, disclosed that major losses occurred in the Selous-Mikumi, Ruaha-Rungwa and Malagarasi Muyowosi ecosystems.

He said the situation accounts for the majority of the elephant population decline, while two northern ecosystems Serengeti and Tarangire-Manyara showed encouraging increases.

Nyalandu said the final results of the 2014 countrywide elephant census show that the country has a total elephant population of 43,521, compared to the 2009 census of 109,051 elephants in the East African nation.

The minister said in Ruaha-Rungwa ecosystem, more than 10,000 elephants disappeared.
"This has confused even researchers as in the survey they only counted more than 8,000 elephants, contrary to the number recorded in 2013, whereby there were more than 24,000 elephants.
"It is not clear whether those elephants have been killed or migrated into other ecosystems," Nyalandu said, adding that the number of elephants which were found dead for natural death was below 100 as it was in 2013 census.
"This is a shocking result as numbers have declined by 60 percent in just five years," said Andre Baumgarten of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS).
"The most likely cause of decline is a dramatic upsurge in poaching, which Tanzania has been struggling to contend with over recent years due to insufficient resources for protected area management," he said.

He however said that FZS would continue to provide adaptive support to partners on the management, monitoring and protection with particular focus on improved law enforcement and anti- poaching through training and provision of resources.

Dr. Simon Mduma, Director General of the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), said the census covered all of Tanzania’s key elephant ecosystems as part of an ambitious initiative funded by Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to assess the current state of elephant populations across Africa.

He said the census sought to assess the size and distribution of the country’s elephant population and provide Tanzania and other players with accurate and reliable data to inform long-term conservation management.

The census was conducted by TAWIRI in collaboration with FZS, and Vulcan Inc, covering an area of 268,692 square kilometers, which is 28.3 percent of the entire country landmass.

The surveyed ecosystems were Serengeti, Tarangire-Manyara, Katavi-Rukwa, Burigi-Biharamulo, Malagarasi-Muyowosi, Selous- Mikumi and Ruaha-Rungwa, Mkomazi and Saadani.