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Too Many Elephants: A Continent-Wide Problem: Part I

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Book cover African Ecology

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Abstract

With the extinction of Africa’s Elephas species some 35,000 years ago the modern African elephant Loxodonta africana Blumenbach became the largest terrestrial mammal to survive into the present. As such it is hardly cause for surprise that it requires considerable space to provide for its absolutely large food requirements, and in its search for food it has necessarily clashed with man’s similar interests. Although there was general pessimism concerning continued survival of the elephant at the end of the nineteenth century, it was already considered a problem in parts of Uganda before 1912. This may have been attributable to the enforced displacement of human populations in anti-sleeping sickness measures, settling people in areas formerly used by elephants.

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    Clive A. Spinage D.Sc

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Spinage, C.A. (2012). Too Many Elephants: A Continent-Wide Problem: Part I. In: African Ecology. Springer Geography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22872-8_14

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