Although officials have decreased the poaching of elephant tusks in Northern Africa, a U research study showed that elephants might be in danger of human encroachment on their habitat.
Most elephants living on the African savanna in Northern Kenya graze on leaves in the dry season and grass for a few months when it rains more, but while conducting a 10-year study on elephant dietary habits, U researchers found the elephants weren’t able to eat grass for one season because cattle beat them to it.
“For an elephant to eat grass, you have to think of it as spaghetti,” said Thure Cerling, a geology and geophysics professor at the U. “It’s cut up into tiny pieces and hard to pick up with a fork. An elephant has to twist the grass around, and if it’s less than a foot high, they can’t get it.”
As humans start moving closer to the elephants, their cattle eat the grass, keeping it lower than a foot and too low for elephants to grasp with their trunks.
Researchers began monitoring the movements of more than 800 elephants using GPS technology, and Save the Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton sent Cerling tail hair from the Northern African elephants they tracked.
By using isotopes in the tail hair, Cerling and math doctoral student Chris Remien traced the dietary history of each elephant. The isotopes, which are atomic elements with an extra neutron, can be used as tracers when researchers measure the ratio of different isotopes and connect it to the composition of various plants, including grass.
The family of elephants called the Royals moved away from their traditional grazing habitat in Buffalo Springs National Reserve in Northern Kenya to a nearby area one season, Cerling said.
“There’s far too many elephants than that space can hold,” Cerling said. “They use the land outside the park and people use the land outside the park, but as pressures increase, people in Africa will have to figure out how to make that work.”
Remien said they’re trying to figure out why the elephants moved that specific season.
Researchers will continue monitoring tail hair isotopes in what Cerling calls the one of the first long-term day and night elephant observations.
“Before this study, no one had been able to quantify how much grass is in their diet,” Cerling said.
The study showed that grass makes up almost 60 percent of their diet during the rainy season and just 5 percent the rest of the time.
Although Cerling said researchers monitoring the elephants didn’t report any poor health in the elephants during the season their diet was irregular, grass could still play a role in healthy weight for birthing.
Holly Braithwaite, spokeswoman for the Hogle Zoo, said the elephants housed at the zoo primarily eat hay and grass, which are both necessary since some food, such as alfalfa, have too much protein for maintaining health.
“It’s something the elephants clearly need,” Cerling said. “For millions of years, grass has been extremely important to their diet.”
U researchers are also working with Kenyan Wildlife Services concerning lions and rhinoceros.
Thure CerlingElephant- U research showed human encroachment on elephant habitat might decrease food sources for the elephants. A large problem comes from cattle that graze and make it difficult for elephants to find food.