Great Elephant Census

Reports from conservationists, scientists, and enforcement officers told of savanna elephants being slaughtered at an alarming rate because of poaching, habitat loss, and human/wildlife conflict. And yet, there was no critical, seemingly fundamental data about how dramatic and extensive the decline was; data showing the true rate of extinction and how many elephants were left was not readily available. At best, the data was outdated and scattershot, because there hadn’t been a pan-African survey in almost 40 years. This lack of key information prompted Paul to launch an effort that was unprecedented in scale and scope — the Great Elephant Census (GEC). His goal for the massive, continent-spanning census was to quantify how many elephants remained and where they were declining (or thriving) and to then share that information to inform conservation, enforcement, and legislation.

The GEC began in 2013, and by the time it was completed in 2016, the massive undertaking involved national park and wildlife staff from 18 countries who enlisted the support of seven NGOs — totaling more than 90 scientists and 286 crew. All efforts were coordinated by Paul's team at his company, Vulcan, and principal investigator Mike Chase of Elephants Without Borders. A 10-member Technical Advisory Group also established standardized methodologies and reviewed and validated all survey results and reports. More than 90 percent of the census was completed using evenly spaced, aerial sample counts — where a representative portion (generally 5-20 percent) of a landscape was surveyed from planes and statistical modeling was used to extrapolate findings for the whole area. Sample counts were based on techniques pioneered by Mike Norton-Griffiths in the 1970s. Groups of 10 or more elephants were also photographed with GPS-enabled cameras. For extremely densely populated areas, or those with a few very large herds, tallies were compiled using an elephant-by-elephant count. And, in order to facilitate historical comparisons with previous surveys, a few areas were counted through block counts (where this had been done previously). 

Developers at Vulcan built a central database to collect all raw data as soon as each survey flight was completed. That meant, for the first time ever, population data from across Africa was available for anyone who wanted it, as open-source, as long as permission was granted from participating governments and survey implementers. It’s important to realize the census didn’t just count live elephants, it counted dead ones, too. Spotters tallied elephant carcasses to identify poaching hotspots — defined as a carcass ratio of more than eight percent (a level high enough to cause a declining population). It also counted other wildlife, livestock, and even the presence of humans and houses. Like the elephant data, this information is now available to inform researchers’ understanding of the status of other species, and to make it easier to identify relationships between these variables. Of course, all surveys have errors. Observers may miss elephants in the shadows of trees, pilots may have trouble maintaining a constant altitude and speed. Final numbers generated, including those in GEC surveys, also have sampling error. But because of the technology and methodologies used, researchers are 95 percent confident (have 95 percent confidence) in the results revealed.

And those results were nothing short of shocking. They revealed a dramatic decline in elephant populations across Africa — a 30 percent loss in just seven years — and provided stark evidence of the impact of poaching, ivory consumption, war and human-wildlife conflict. For example, Angola’s, Mozambique’s and Tanzania’s elephants experienced staggering population drops which were much greater than previously known and expected. In some places, carcass ratios reached 40-80 percent. Devastatingly low numbers of elephants were also found in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, northern Cameroon and southwest Zambia. In fact, populations in these regions suffered local extinction. 

However, when analyzed on a country-by-country basis, bright spots were also found.

These included positive census numbers in Chad’s Zakouma National Park, where populations stabilized after severe poaching in previous years. In Uganda, populations increased from fewer than 800 elephants to over 4,000. Similarly, South Africa, Botswana, parts of Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and the W-Arli-Pendjari conservation complex of protected areas spanning Benin, Niger, and Burkina Faso were found to have stable or slightly increasing elephant populations. (For W-Arli-Pendjari, this was particularly important news for protected area managers, because they have the only significant elephant population that remains in West Africa.)

The scientific paper is available here. 

Since Paul and his team completed the census, significant changes have happened on a global scale. For many countries, the data inspired them to take action by protecting elephant populations and improving the global battle against ivory trafficking.

Paul took great satisfaction in providing data that catalyzed people around the world to take action and protect elephants. Perhaps the most rewarding milestone came in 2016, when delegates from the IUCN congress passed a motion calling for countries to close domestic ivory trades. And all 182 member nations of CITES (an international agreement between governments to protect endangered plants and animals), agreed that legal ivory markets must be closed. Within the next year, China and Hong Kong, two of the largest legal markets on the planet, both agreed to implement ivory bans. Also, in Tanzania, one of the hardest-hit countries, increased enforcement led to the arrest of several high-profile ivory kingpins. The GEC also inspired the need for improvements in how protected area managers can monitor and manage their wildlife populations, including the development of new products, like EarthRanger.