{"id":13535,"date":"2012-08-15T14:48:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/08\/s-africa-goes-big-on-birth-control-for-elephants\/"},"modified":"2012-08-15T14:48:02","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T12:48:02","slug":"s-africa-goes-big-on-birth-control-for-elephants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-goes-big-on-birth-control-for-elephants\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa goes big on birth control for elephants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Jon Herskovitz<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; A South African province<br \/>\nhome to thousands of elephants is planning a birth control<br \/>\ncampaign for the pachyderms to prevent a population explosion<br \/>\nthat could threaten plants and wildlife.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Unlike other parts of Africa where elephant stocks have<br \/>\ndwindled to dangerously low levels due to poaching and a loss of<br \/>\nhabitat, South Africa has seen its populations steadily grow<br \/>\nthrough conservation, with the country pressed for room to house<br \/>\nthe massive animals with hefty diets.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>KwaZulu-Natal province, in the southeast, is looking to<br \/>\nexpand a project running for more than a decade where elephants<br \/>\npopulations have been controlled by injecting cows with a<br \/>\nvaccine that triggers an immune system response to block sperm<br \/>\nreception.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Slowing the growth rate will allow time to be gained to<br \/>\nachieve other biodiversity objectives, such as land expansion,<br \/>\nwithout having to cull the elephants,&#8221; said Catherine Hanekom,<br \/>\nan ecologist for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South Africa, which had just over 100 elephants nearly a<br \/>\ncentury ago, now has more than 20,000, studies said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The overpopulation problem is the most dire in neighbouring<br \/>\nBotswana, home to at least 133,000 elephants, where vast forests<br \/>\nhave been lost to satiate their appetites. With a human<br \/>\npopulation of 2 million, it has the highest elephant-to-people<br \/>\nratio in Africa, at one for every 14 people.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Adult elephants consume about 100 to 300 kgs (220 to 660<br \/>\npounds) of food a day and most elephants in South Africa are in<br \/>\nfenced-in reserves where vegetation could be decimated if<br \/>\npopulations grow too large.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because we have taken away opportunities, they don&#8217;t have<br \/>\nthe chance to remedy the overpopulation naturally as they would<br \/>\nthrough migration,&#8221; said Audrey Delsink Kettles, an elephant<br \/>\necologist who has been leading studies for years on<br \/>\ncontraception at Makalali Private Game Reserve.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jon Herskovitz JOHANNESBURG Aug 15 (Reuters) &#8211; A South African province home to thousands of elephants is planning a birth control campaign for the pachyderms to prevent a population explosion that could threaten plants and wildlife. Unlike other parts of Africa where elephant stocks have dwindled to dangerously low levels due to poaching and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}