How Not Growing Tusks Saved Elephants' Lives | Back from the Brink

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During Mozambique‘s fifteen years of civil war, the elephant population of Gorongosa National Park was decimated by 90%. Demand for their precious ivory skyrocketed in order to finance the conflict.

However, a rare natural trait seems to have saved a small number: tusklessness. Female elephants stopped developing them. With a surprising consequence: 51% of the surviving female elephants in Gorongosa had no more tusks after the civil war, escaping the poacher’s target.

Put simply, it prevented them from being killed. Yet, this evolutionary development could come at a high cost: Whole ecosystems across Africa could be changed if the tuskless trend continues.


🐘 Gorongosa National Park (GNP) Elephant Ecology Project: https://gorongosa.org/elephant-ecolog...

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🔗 Footage Sources:
Used with permission from Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Used with permission from Gorongosa Media.

🔗 Scientific sources
00:16
Ivory hunting drives evolution of tuskless elephants, nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
Ivory poaching and the rapid evolution of tusklessness in African elephants, ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

00:57
Ivory hunting drives evolution of tuskless elephants, nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
Elephant Ecology Project | Gorongosa National Park
https://gorongosa.org/elephant-ecolog...
Ivory poaching and the rapid evolution of tusklessness in African elephants, ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

01:27
Campbell-Staton Group
https://www.campbellstaton.com/elephants
Under poaching pressure, elephants are evolving to lose their, National Geographic
tuskshttps://www.nationalgeographic.com/an...
Ivory poaching and the rapid evolution of tusklessness in African elephants, ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

02:21
Save the elephants
https://www.savetheelephants.org/abou...

02:38
The International Ban on Ivory Sales and its Effects on Elephant Poaching in Africa, British Journal of Criminology
https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/...
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census

03:05
The International Ban on Ivory Sales and its Effects on Elephant Poaching in Africa, British Journal of Criminology
https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/...
www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/140818-elephants-africa-poaching-cites-census

03:14
Elephant Ecology Project | Gorongosa National Park
https://gorongosa.org/elephant-ecolog...