Unprecedented census confirms staggering decline in African elephant populations

While wildlife experts and advocates have long known elephants are in dire need of protection, essential data has been missing from the debate around conservation.

Mainly, conservationists have faced one vital question for decades: How many African elephants are actually left in the wild?

SEE ALSO:Gripping photos capture the beauty and plight of the world's elephants

The Great Elephant Census (GEC), an aerial data collection effort spearheaded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's philanthropic investment company Vulcan Inc., is helping fill in this gap.

On Wednesday, the project released unprecedented data on African savanna elephants with the hope of informing conservation efforts. Over the past three years, GEC researchers have been collecting elephant population data from 18 countries in Africa in what is the first continent-wide aerial survey of African elephants.

"The average decline of 30 percent over seven years is higher than a lot of us feared and estimated."

The newly released data confirms staggering declines in African savanna elephant populations over the last decade. It's a reality conservationists long suspected, but have never had the ability to confirm without an accurate count.

Elephants across Africa are under immense threat. The species faces habitat loss, increased human-elephant conflict and poaching to meet the continued demand for ivory.

Wildlife groups have long accepted data on the prevalence of elephant poaching, which estimates 100 elephants are killed per day in Africa. That information, however, lacked adequate perspective without an accurate count of living wild elephants in the African savanna.

A census plane flies over a herd of elephants in Botswana.Credit: GEC/Vulcan

But data collected by the GEC changes that, having taken stock of 352,271 elephants across Africa. This number, according to researchers, represents at least 93 percent of African savanna elephants in the 18 surveyed countries.

Notably, the data collected suggests that savanna elephant populations declined by about 30 percent across the continent – totaling an estimated 144,000 fewer elephants – between 2007 and 2014.

SEE ALSO:How Paul Allen's $7 million and big data are combating Africa's elephant crisis

"The average decline of 30 percent over seven years is higher than a lot of us feared and estimated," James Deutsch, wildlife conservation director at Vulcan, tells Mashable.

"That's a critical number for keeping global policy focused on these issues."

Digging into the data

An estimated 84 percent of the elephants surveyed were spotted in legally protected wildlife areas, while 16 percent were in unprotected areas. Although the majority of areas containing elephants had protected status, researchers reported finding high numbers of elephant carcasses in those regions, indicating that elephants are struggling both within and outside the parks.

According to the newly released GEC data, the current rate of species decline is 8 percent per year across the continent. This percentage marks an increase in African savanna elephant deaths from 2007 to 2014, primarily due to poaching.

"In some places, governments are starting to take action. But in some places, a lot more work needs to be done."

In the majority of surveyed countries, the census also measured carcass ratios, or the percentages of dead elephants observed. According to GEC researchers, a carcass ratio of 8 percent or higher indicates poaching at a high enough level to constitute a declining elephant population.

Out of the 14 regions that reported a carcass ratio, nine documented a percentage of 8 percent or more. In Cameroon and parts of Zambia, the carcass ratio was over 80 percent.

According to the census, populations in these regions face local extinction if immediate action isn't taken.

The census also found that Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania’s elephant populations have experienced staggering population declines, which were much greater than previously known or expected.

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Ibrahim Thiawan, United Nations environment deputy head, said in a press release addressing the new data that the prevalence of poaching is disheartening, making no sense on a "moral, economic or political" level.

“Elephants are already locally extinct in my own country, Mauritania, and I do not want to see this happen anywhere else,” Thiawan said in the release. “[There is] an imminent possibility in Cameroon and Mali, and further down the line in other countries, unless we accelerate action.”

Africana savanna elephants were counted by researchers over a three year period.Credit: GEC/ Vulcan

But not all news from the census points to devastation for the world's African elephants. Many parts of the continent -- including South Africa, Botswana, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso -- were found to have stable or slightly increasing elephant populations. This promising data, Deutsch says, is partly due to the strength of conservation efforts in those regions.

"For example, no one expected that we'd find twice as many elephants in the W-Aali-Pendjari Complex in the three countries of West Africa [Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin] than we did in 2003," he adds.

"In some places, governments are starting to take action. But in some places, a lot more work needs to be done."

Using data to inform conservation

Paul Allen and the philanthropic arm of Vulcan started the GEC in 2013 with a $7.3 million dollar grant and a partnership with Botswana nonprofit Elephants Without Borders. Throughout the three year survey, researchers spent a total of 9,700 hours -- or 406 days -- surveying Africa by plane, collecting data on vulnerable elephant populations.

But Vulcan and Elephants Without Borders didn't accomplish the census alone. Wildlife department staff in the 18 countries surveyed -- more than 90 scientists, six non-governmental organizations and dozens of conservationists -- aided in data collection efforts.

Census researchers at a wildlife conservation park in Africa.Credit: GEC/Vulcan

Even with the collaboration of wildlife experts, the process of documenting elephant populations was difficult. Elephants, after all, are being poached as research efforts like the GEC are trying to count them.

With an elephant estimated to die every 15 minutes in Africa, time is of the essence when it comes to improving conservation efforts. Researchers with the GEC were acutely aware of that fact throughout the three-year effort, sharing preliminary data with governments and nonprofits to help support African savanna elephant populations in real time.

"As we did the survey, we released the [country] data as quickly as possible to governments and NGOs," Deutsch says.

"And, in many cases, that has already prompted the government and their partners to do more about the crisis."

In Mozambique, for example, the government responded to their country's data by creating an environmental police force that hadn't existed before. In Tanzania, Deutsch says the data helped increase governmental support for wildlife investigators, which in turn have begun apprehending top wildlife traffickers in the region.

Unfinished business

While the census has been completed in 18 African countries, projected surveying in two additional countries -- South Sudan and the Central African Republic -- had to be abandoned before they were completed due to security concerns. Deutsch says aerial surveying of these two regions is anticipated to be completed by end of 2016, depending on conditions impacting safety and data reliability.

But researchers have even more unfinished business when it comes to painting a picture of elephants' plight in Africa. Notably, the GEC only measured African savanna elephants, not all African elephant populations.

This means the survey left out African forest elephants, a separate subspecies of African elephant that are slightly smaller than savanna elephants, live in forest habitats and have different tusks.

A herd of elephants is observed from above in a GEC plane.Credit: GEC/Vulcan

Deutsch says the census will soon shift focus to gathering data on forest elephant populations, a species considered "vulnerable" by conservationists. That collection, he admits, presents even more challenges than the census on savanna elephants.

"We really have no idea how many forest elephants remain in the rainforests of Central Africa and West Africa," Deutsch says.

"Data has to be followed by action."

"We are working with partners to launch GEC Forest to count the number of forest elephants left, but it's harder because you have to do it on the ground."

But Deutsch stresses that the future of effective elephant conservation efforts rely on this type of data and transparency. While he calls data "absolutely critical," he is also quick to emphasize that numbers alone are not enough.

"Data has to be followed by action," Deutsch says.

The future of Vulcan's role in elephant conservation, he says, involves moving toward greater action that is informed by data.

The company is currently supporting wildlife crime units in Tanzania, working with partners in Africa to improve surveillance and patrol, and working to empower and inform local conservation efforts with current GEC data.

“As depressing as these numbers are, I hope they act as a further spark for action and change,” Thiamin said in the UN release. “We know how to solve the crisis. The Great Elephant Census tells us we must act, and now.”

Final continent-wide data from the recently completed GEC will be unveiled at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Hawaii on Sept. 2. The Great Elephant Census data is available to the general public here, along with more information on how you can support vulnerable elephant populations.

UPDATE: Aug. 31, 2016, 3:01 p.m. EDT Updated with press release commentary from United Nations environment deputy head Ibrahim Thiawan.

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