
Elephants without tusks are a response to the selective pressure of poaching - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/41/selection/how-an-elephant-loses-its-tusks
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adamnemecek
I'm hoping that at some point in the future, ML + drones will make poaching a
thing of the past. Unfortunately, some African countries, such as Zimbabwe and
South Africa, have restrictions on drone ownership.

Also if you want to help, you should consider donating to the International
Anti-Poaching Foundation[0][1] which fights these poachers. The founder,
Damien Mander[2], is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his
military experience to train the park rangers since they, unlike the poachers,
tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed. There is also
the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[3][4] which takes care of elephant and
rhino orphans (most of them are orphans due to poaching). For $50 a year, you
can become a sponsor of a particular orphan and they'll send you photos and
updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor
this little fella [5][6]. It's a great gift.

[0] [http://www.iapf.org/](http://www.iapf.org/)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-
Poaching_Foundation)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander)

[3]
[http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org)

[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust)

[5]
[http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp...](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=318)

[6] [http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb](http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb)

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eknkc
It would be much better to soak some ivory in cyanide or something stronger
and get it into market.

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Something1234
Would the cyanide slowly leach out when people touch it or something like
that?

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dredmorbius
Tusks are used in "traditional medicines", among other uses.

Even the threat of poisoned ivory would be a strong disincentive for that
market.

Permanently stained tusks have been used to dissuade material use (e.g.,
statues or figures).

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neximo64
Would not stained tusks have an impact on the elephants perception of each
other? We as human beings have all sorts of perceptions on obesity, skin
colour, hair colour..

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eriknstr
I think what eknkc suggested was that the cyanide was to be applied to ivory
which had already been collected, not on live elephants.

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neximo64
I'm not referring to cyanide, i'm referring to the colour staining of ivory on
animals that are alive. The colour stops poachers wanting to kill the animal,
but does it not impact the animals life - that's the question i'm asking.

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_Adam
I find it sad to think that one day we will refer to the "Tusked Elephant" the
same we way we now refer to the "Sabre-Toothed Tiger". Evolution may have
found a way to survive humanity in this case, but it's reason for needing to
do so is absolutely stupid.

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vblord
Is this considered evolution? Maybe more like natural selection?

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dragonwriter
Natural selection is the mechanism, evolution is the result.

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rbanffy
Selection, natural or artificial. Evolution doesn't care.

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ChristianGeek
This is the saddest example of "natural" selection I've heard of.

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projektir
Then I would say you haven't heard much. Natural selection is a horrific
process whether or not humans are involved in it. By definition it implies the
death and suffering of countless creatures so that a few are selected.

This is nothing. We're concerned about it because we like elephants, but as
far as nature is concerned, there's nothing wrong with killing off ~75% of all
species once in a blue moon. [1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#List_of_extin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#List_of_extinction_events)

~~~
pavanred
I think the term natural selection is sort of a misnomer, makes it easy to
misinterpret it as if many are let to die while few are selected. It just
happens creatures that with certain traits are more adapted to survive and
reproduce (not having tusks in this case), where as some other creatures are
not and die. Hence those specific traits tend to be preserved in subsequent
generations while the others just didn't survive to reproduce.

And, the extinction events, its not like nature is cruel and killed off most
species. As you see in the list of extinctions, the reasons mostly are that
the environment (or nature if you will), changed too drastically and quickly
that most species couldn't adapt fast enough to survive.

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marcoperaza
> _its not like nature is cruel and killed off most species_

> _the environment (or nature if you will), changed too drastically and
> quickly that most species couldn 't adapt fast enough to survive._

These are not mutually exclusive. Mass starvation caused by environmental
changes is a cruel kill off. I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make
is.

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1457389
I would say you are a little too excited about the drama and morality of a
statistical process, and it's occluding your understanding of what's actually
going on.

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oldmanjay
That's a lot of emotional content to infer from a post with such a neutral
tone. I'm also struggling to see evidence of occluded understanding.

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Swizec
I think the idea is that these events aren't catastrophic on an individual
lifespan level. They're catastrophic in geological time.

Look at the holocene extinction event. It's been going on for over 10,000
years. It's only noticeable statistically, doesn't affect day-to-day life much
if at all. Therefore it's not really cruel because for most species it's as
benign as having a little too few babies to maintain the population.

~~~
Chronic9q
It appears that, as expected, a young millennial is trying to blame this on
human accelerated climate change. (not necessarily you, but someone in the
above comment chain).

And yes, I agree that human accelerated climate change is causing faster
extensions. However, I could care less. When does the new MacBook Pro refresh
come out?

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kukx
There's an interesting comment about a similar thing happening with rattle
snakes. It seems they evolve into silent snakes to better avoid human
predators: [http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-
phoen...](http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-
phoenix/rattlesnakes-evolving-losing-their-rattles-expert-says)

~~~
Houshalter
Cats are slowly becoming undomesticated because humans sterilize most of the
nonstray cats.

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dacompton
Bah, cats were never domesticated.

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lazugod
Do poachers have an incentive to kill tuskless elephants too, then, so they
don't become more dominant than tusked ones?

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praxulus
Collectively they do, but no individual poacher has much to gain from killing
an individual tuskless elephant. It's like a tragedy of the commons, but one
that works out well for the elephants.

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adamnemecek
They do kill them so that they don't try to track the animal again in the
future.

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hueving
Apparently they don't. Otherwise we wouldn't be reading this story.

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akssri
AlJazeera has a nice documentary,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OsMdzrxQfA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OsMdzrxQfA)

It appears that tusks from African elephants are more valued in China than
those from S/S.E Asia. Does anyone know why this is ?

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kriro
Pretty sad that human greed can force such an adaption.

With that out of the way I wonder how good nature is generally in adapting to
human caused problems. This strategy seems a bit flawed as it should lead to a
sharp decline in the male population and an overpopulation of females. That
could in fact lead to even more danger for the elephant population. Before the
damage was spread over both genders but it is now focused on just one.

I'd love to see a list of animal mutations that resulted from human
intervention. Would be very interesting to read.

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mrfusion
Offshoot topic I've been wondering. Why aren't deer evolving to stay away from
roads?

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nn3
Complex behaviors are difficult to evolve. There is unlikely to be a "stay
away from roads" allele, while a "no tusks" allele was already in the elephant
population.

If they live in an area where there are lots of roads everywhere, completely
avoiding them may actually be maladaptive, as not every road crossing results
in a fatality and they could well be trapped in a small area without it.

If they live in an area without many roads it probably doesn't really matter.

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SticksAndBreaks
Imagine what selective pressure could do in the future. Any non-human
beneficial species is basically a pro. Eat poisonous algea and become un-
eatable and you wont be hunted. Distribute Ambrosia near your living space,
and human hikers will leave you alone. This would make a nice apocalyptic
trailer speach: "They had miss-treated here and thought about making ammends,
but she would have non of it. Mother nature is back, with a vengence! This
year, outside of theaters."

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ransom1538
Wouldn't fighting poaching just increase the overall value of ivory? Drones,
guns and enforcement will just cause x10 in price?

Seems like instead of following the "war on drugs" model we should stuff the
market full of practically identical synthetic ivory? Or focus on mass
elephant reproduction.

One of the comments suggests money to fight poaching - I fear again, wrong
approach.

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jacquesm
> Wouldn't fighting poaching just increase the overall value of ivory?

That implies that less ivory makes it to the market which means that more
elephants make it through life without getting killed for their tusks.

Ivory isn't as easily produced as most drugs so the price of ivory is dictated
by scarcity even absent any other controls.

You could make as much of most drugs as bulk chemistry or farming allows.

So the value of ivory going up as a result of being tougher on poachers would
be proof that it is working.

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Chronic9q
> So the value of ivory going up as a result of being tougher on poachers
> would be proof that it is working.

Have you taken Economics 101? You do remember what happens when the selling
price of a good gets too high? Lots of profit to be made will encourage
poachers to hunt. They will take even larger risks (e.g. Being shot by drone)
to obtain ivory since the profits are too high.

~~~
jacquesm
> Have you taken Economics 101?

Yes, have you?

If the price of Ivory rises then yes, more people will be driven to poaching
but unless the price drops to the previous level due to the subsequent
increase in supply _still_ more elephants will make it.

Only if the price of Ivory drops relative to the baseline could you conclude
that a program to target poachers has failed.

If what you write is true then we should simply not do anything about poaching
at all... but ideally the price of Ivory would rise to incredible heights
because _none_ of it makes it to the market because all poachers are caught.

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notgood
You should think a little bit ahead of that, give them fake tusks filled with
poison gas (anti-human only). You aren't going to win this war being the
passive one.

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TeMPOraL
If Nature would be able to think ahead, it'd have already colonized the Solar
System.

~~~
tomrod
You could argue she has, and here we are on the cusp to do just that.

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wodencafe
Those poor elephants :(

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JBiserkov
>While virtually no male elephants are tuskless (they need tusks to fight),
about 2 percent of female elephants are naturally tuskless. Among female
elephants in Gorongosa who were adults during the civil war, however, half are
tuskless — the others were simply killed. But tusklessness is an inheritable
trait. That means that, even though poaching levels have fallen, a third of
Gorongos’s young female population is tuskless today.

I think the correct term is survivor bias.

Update re downvotes: The title literally says "Elephants without tusks are a
response to the selective pressure of poaching".

The body text says "2% of female elephants are _naturally_ tuskless" (emphasis
mine).

So "Elephants without tusks" per se are natural.

"(Massive) Increase in % of tuskless offspring as a result of selective
killing of tuskfull adults (given that tusklessness is an inheritable trait)"
seems like a more accurate, yet obvious (almost tautologically so)
observation. It seems to be true when the trait is inheritable and strongly
discriminated against - the children of the survivors look more like the
survivors than those who were killed because they (the killed) were different.
You don't say!

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pix64
Naturally meaning born without.

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JBiserkov
Yes.

