How about we don’t address the elephant in the room?

By: Paniz Langary

Let’s face it, it is hard to ignore an elephant, but for the sake of conservation, it is crucial that we do exactly that. While metaphorically, it is totally reasonable to address the elephant in the room, it literally, is not so reasonable, and human-elephant interactions should be limited. Elephants are incredibly social and intelligent, yet their populations are threatened by habitat loss, poachers, and human-wildlife conflict. Human populations continue to grow and influence conflict levels and habitat loss. The endangerment status of elephants is widely known, but have you ever wondered how elephants are physiologically affected due to human disturbances? Ruchun Tang and their colleagues have. They hypothesized that, to wild Asian elephants, human disturbances could act as an environmental stressor, and that prolonged exposure would impact their reproductive potentials. This research sheds an important light on the impact human disturbances can have on elephant well-being and reproductive success. Knowing that elephant populations are a victim to human activity, to observe any physiological effects, the authors studied populations from sites of varying levels of human interference over several years. Specifically, they observed females of the populations, while independent or bullonly groups were excluded from analyses. The research team examined the physiological stress they might endure by analyzing hormone levels in fecal samples. Researchers had focused on the levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, and the female reproductive hormone, estradiol. The results of this study were quite concerning. In areas of high human disturbance, the elephant population exhibited increased levels of cortisol and decreased levels of estradiol. “Well, stress is a natural response that any animal will experience!” you might be thinking, while this is true to some degree, these populations are experiencing this to a serious degree. Estradiol is a reproductive hormone, and a decrease in this hormone negatively influences elephant populations, which certainly does not help their endangerment status. Tang and their colleagues confirm that human disturbance negatively influences elephant populations and that, the need for conservation management is urgent. Ignoring facts will continue to lead to the poor wellbeing and reproductive potential of this species. Elephants experience a negative correlation between their hormone’s cortisol and estradiol, meaning increased stress leads to decreased estradiol, and less reproductive success. Thanks to this study, the impact of human-elephant interactions is clear, and effective conservation management plans can be formed. Healthy hormone concentrations can be monitored and maintained, and more importantly, a balance between economic development and habitat protection can be established. Ecosystems are incredibly delicate, and elephants undoubtedly play an integral role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem. So, if habitat destruction continues at this rate, then it will be more than just the elephant population affected. I am going to go ahead and address the metaphorical elephant in the room to stress the importance of not addressing the literal elephant populations and leaving them be.

Tang, R., Li, W., Zhu, D., Shang, X., Guo, X., Zhang, L. (2020) Raging elephants: effects of human disturbance on physiological stress and reproductive potential in wild Asian elephants. Conservation Physiology. 8, 1-14