>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!
I think your correction is mistaken. Survivor bias is a logical error [1]. This sounds like natural selection with human activity acting as a selection factor.
"[Survivor Bias] is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.
I wonder if it's possible to find even a rare mutation of a tusk-less male and manipulate things somehow. Or perhaps even if we do, for males tusks are really too much of a necessity for this to happen.
Well, in the grand scheme of things, yes. Really, the most pragmatic argument for preserving the environment is saving ourselves. The universe doesn't care.
I'm too lazy to look up the reference, but a similar thing has been happening with big horn sheep. Their horns are getting smaller as (legal) hunters have preferentially killed the rams with the largest horns.
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]
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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?
We could argue for a while whether it's "few" or not depending on which scale or species you're looking at, but that wasn't really the point. I'm not really even concerned with the death of a given species or organism in and of itself, but other people are.
It's a selection process that results in countless creatures suffering and dying over and over. Sometimes even the selected creatures are suffering immensely and dying shortly after reproducing.
The environment changed too drastically and killed off most species. Humans changed the environment too drastically and it killed off some species. I fail to see what is it that humans are introducing that is so novel. If anything, it just seems like we're tapping into an existing process. Or, I would say, we always were part of the existing process.
Should we promote the process? I do not think so. But talking about opposing or stopping nature is the direct opposite of the usual rhetoric one hears, which is often in the form of: "Humans are terrible and are driving these poor creatures extinct and messing up the environment, we are not paying respects to Mother Nature!"
Meanwhile "Mother Nature" is OK with flooding the entire atmosphere with a completely different gas and making it unlivable for anything that used to be there before.
Species who are "winning" at natural selection can also die in cruel circumstances. They just have to reproduce first.
Some Octupi guard their eggs until they hatch, and at the same time dying of starvation. Other species of insects have the young eat their parent(s) after being hatched.
Why sad? Why should elephants have tusks. Elephants perhaps evolved tusks because they were useful weapons and tools in the past, but for generations of elephants now the tusks are the reason they are killed. So, they are evolving without tusks to counter the biggest threat for their survival, humans.
Only someone who has never seen an elephant use its tusks to rip apart a tree to get the food it needs to eat for the day could seriously ask that question.
Elephants evolved tusks because they need them. An elephant without tusks is at a serious disadvantage for all purposes apart from human predation.
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.
They have a larger incentive to kill fewer elephants overall so there continues to be an elephant population to profit from. It doesn't change anything because a poacher is interested in getting big money now, not establishing a sustainable income stream for future decades.
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.
Ivory's a beautiful, extremely useful substance; outlawing it makes as little sense as outlawing alcohol, marijuana or beef. What needs to be done is to create the appropriate legal framework and property rights to give Africans an incentive to ranch elephants. Cattle will never go extinct because people like hamburgers; the idea of elephants going extinct solely because people like ivory is mad.
Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
> Ivory's a beautiful, extremely useful substance;
Beautiful maybe, useful, not really.
> outlawing it makes as little sense as outlawing alcohol,
Not really, prior to 2008 when the CITES relaxed ivory sale regulation, poaching was minimal. The current poaching crisis is a result of this relaxation. Not every good behaves the same way as alcohol.
> What needs to be done is to create the appropriate legal framework and property rights to give Africans an incentive to ranch elephants.
Not possible for ecological, zoological economical and ethical reasons. Elephants take at least 20 years to start growing tusks but the 'big tuskers' are ~50 years old.
Also, you won't be able to produce ivory cheaper than a poacher who doesn't have to invest into the elephant. Also elephants aren't domesticated. Also they are an extremely intelligent and social species and one of the species that come up in "non-human personhood" discussions.
> What needs to be done is to create the appropriate legal framework and property rights to give Africans an incentive to ranch elephants.
Right. Establishing legal frameworks and enforcing laws in Africa is very easy.
> Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
I've argued this before, media shaming could be really effective here. Ivory dealers as incompetent villains. Pathetic ivory consumers. It's not an addiction, it's a status symbol. Destroy the status.
I saw plenty of domesticated elephants in Thailand (and I assume all of South East Asia). Are African elephant some how different when it comes to this?
> Elephants take at least 20 years to start growing tusks but the 'big tuskers' are ~50 years old.
Trees also take decades to grow, and yet tree farms are a viable economy.
> Also, you won't be able to produce ivory cheaper than a poacher who doesn't have to invest into the elephant.
So the elephant rancher shoots the poacher. That's what we used to do when cattle rustling was a thing, and it worked pretty well.
> Also they are an extremely intelligent and social species and one of the species that come up in "non-human personhood" discussions.
Frankly, I don't care. Pigs are pretty damned intelligent too, but bacon tastes wonderful. Neither pigs nor elephants are men, and I'm find with killing them.
> Establishing legal frameworks and enforcing laws in Africa is very easy.
It was easier when Africa was better-run, but it can be done again.
> > Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
> It's a lot more complex than that.
No, that is exactly the problem. Species which are useful to man survive; species which are not die; species which are inimical to man are destroyed. We're talking about exterminating mosquitoes, for Pete's sake!
If you want an animal to survive, figure out a way for it to be in someone powerful's interest. The rest will follow as day follows the night.
> Trees also take decades to grow, and yet tree farms are a viable economy.
How much does it cost to grow a tree? It costs quite a bit to raise an elephant.
> So the elephant rancher shoots the poacher. That's what we used to do when cattle rustling was a thing, and it worked pretty well.
You are implying that in your plan there would be no elephants in the wild right? Also can you tell me a bit about your knowledge of animal and in particular elephant husbandry?
> Frankly, I don't care. Pigs are pretty damned intelligent too, but bacon tastes wonderful. Neither pigs nor elephants are men, and I'm find with killing them.
Well not everyone is a psychopath so there's that.
> It was easier when Africa was better-run, but it can be done again.
I like your detailed plan. Also what African countries in particular are you talking about?
> We're talking about exterminating mosquitoes, for Pete's sake!
Idk how that's related? Do you have some device that turns poachers into mosquitoes? Do you?
> If you want an animal to survive, figure out a way for it to be in someone powerful's interest. The rest will follow as day follows the night.
Fuck yeah, fuck ethics, fuck empathy for intelligent beings, fuck ecosystems, libertarianism fuck yeah! On some level I envy you that you have one belief system you think works for everything.
>> You are implying that in your plan there would be no elephants in the wild right?
No, I think the idea is that once we have elephant breeded on ranches then the ivory becomes cheap and easily available thus making poaching business not profitable anymore, making wild elephants safe.
Of course the problem with that approach is that raising an elephant is not cheap, so ivory from domesticated elephants won't be that much cheaper. Unless you can make enough money on elephant's meat, which is also unlikely, since, as someone in this thread noticed, growing nice pair of tusks takes 50 years, and meat of old animals tend to taste much worse than that from younger ones.
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..
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.
[I]n terms of injecting dye mixed with poison into the horn (also discussed in our 'thorny issues'), it has been proven that rhino horn is not porous and that a liquid mix does not diffuse throughout the horn. In other words, the poison/dye mix remains in the drilled holes, making it relatively easy to remove and “detox” the horn if it is, indeed, to be consumed. Any remaining external discolouration can be sanded off. And tellingly, dyeing/poisoning Sabi Sands’ rhinos’ horns did not prevent animals from subsequently being poached.
I'm not sure how restrictions on drone ownership would be a hindrance if drones become a useful tool in preventing poaching. After all, guns are used in fighting poaching yet gun ownership is restricted in (I presume) most countries.
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.
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.
How would you know if they have been? As the human population shoots up massively, car-miles have increased enormously over the past century, and rural areas become denser, the number of deer-car accidents would skyrocket even if they have successfully been evolving to reduce risk.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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."
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.
89 comments
[ 58.9 ms ] story [ 2792 ms ] threadI 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!
"[Survivor Bias] is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that "survived" some process and inadvertently overlooking those that did not because of their lack of visibility.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
>Microevolution reflects changes in DNA sequences and allele frequencies within a species over time.
Allele frequencies changed from ~2% to ~33%. Mutations are not necessary for the process, unless the allele is at 0% frequency to begin with.
If we use these terms against nature at all. "The planet is fine. The people are fucked." (c)
EDIT: Here are a couple of links: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bighorn-sheep-shrinking-du... https://thegatewayonline.ca/2016/01/alberta-bighorn-sheep-ho...
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...
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.
>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.
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.
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?
It's a selection process that results in countless creatures suffering and dying over and over. Sometimes even the selected creatures are suffering immensely and dying shortly after reproducing.
The environment changed too drastically and killed off most species. Humans changed the environment too drastically and it killed off some species. I fail to see what is it that humans are introducing that is so novel. If anything, it just seems like we're tapping into an existing process. Or, I would say, we always were part of the existing process.
Should we promote the process? I do not think so. But talking about opposing or stopping nature is the direct opposite of the usual rhetoric one hears, which is often in the form of: "Humans are terrible and are driving these poor creatures extinct and messing up the environment, we are not paying respects to Mother Nature!"
Meanwhile "Mother Nature" is OK with flooding the entire atmosphere with a completely different gas and making it unlivable for anything that used to be there before.
Species who are "winning" at natural selection can also die in cruel circumstances. They just have to reproduce first.
Some Octupi guard their eggs until they hatch, and at the same time dying of starvation. Other species of insects have the young eat their parent(s) after being hatched.
Elephants evolved tusks because they need them. An elephant without tusks is at a serious disadvantage for all purposes apart from human predation.
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/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander
[3] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust
[5] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp...
[6] http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb
http://teamcore.usc.edu/people/Paws/index.html
Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
Beautiful maybe, useful, not really.
> outlawing it makes as little sense as outlawing alcohol,
Not really, prior to 2008 when the CITES relaxed ivory sale regulation, poaching was minimal. The current poaching crisis is a result of this relaxation. Not every good behaves the same way as alcohol.
> What needs to be done is to create the appropriate legal framework and property rights to give Africans an incentive to ranch elephants.
Not possible for ecological, zoological economical and ethical reasons. Elephants take at least 20 years to start growing tusks but the 'big tuskers' are ~50 years old. Also, you won't be able to produce ivory cheaper than a poacher who doesn't have to invest into the elephant. Also elephants aren't domesticated. Also they are an extremely intelligent and social species and one of the species that come up in "non-human personhood" discussions.
> What needs to be done is to create the appropriate legal framework and property rights to give Africans an incentive to ranch elephants.
Right. Establishing legal frameworks and enforcing laws in Africa is very easy.
> Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
It's a lot more complex than that.
Superman vs the kkk was super effective.
Trees also take decades to grow, and yet tree farms are a viable economy.
> Also, you won't be able to produce ivory cheaper than a poacher who doesn't have to invest into the elephant.
So the elephant rancher shoots the poacher. That's what we used to do when cattle rustling was a thing, and it worked pretty well.
> Also they are an extremely intelligent and social species and one of the species that come up in "non-human personhood" discussions.
Frankly, I don't care. Pigs are pretty damned intelligent too, but bacon tastes wonderful. Neither pigs nor elephants are men, and I'm find with killing them.
> Establishing legal frameworks and enforcing laws in Africa is very easy.
It was easier when Africa was better-run, but it can be done again.
> > Elephants are going extinct because no-one has an interest in keeping them alive. Give someone a reason to keep them alive, and the species will last forever.
> It's a lot more complex than that.
No, that is exactly the problem. Species which are useful to man survive; species which are not die; species which are inimical to man are destroyed. We're talking about exterminating mosquitoes, for Pete's sake!
If you want an animal to survive, figure out a way for it to be in someone powerful's interest. The rest will follow as day follows the night.
How much does it cost to grow a tree? It costs quite a bit to raise an elephant.
> So the elephant rancher shoots the poacher. That's what we used to do when cattle rustling was a thing, and it worked pretty well.
You are implying that in your plan there would be no elephants in the wild right? Also can you tell me a bit about your knowledge of animal and in particular elephant husbandry?
> Frankly, I don't care. Pigs are pretty damned intelligent too, but bacon tastes wonderful. Neither pigs nor elephants are men, and I'm find with killing them.
Well not everyone is a psychopath so there's that.
> It was easier when Africa was better-run, but it can be done again.
I like your detailed plan. Also what African countries in particular are you talking about?
> We're talking about exterminating mosquitoes, for Pete's sake!
Idk how that's related? Do you have some device that turns poachers into mosquitoes? Do you?
> If you want an animal to survive, figure out a way for it to be in someone powerful's interest. The rest will follow as day follows the night.
Fuck yeah, fuck ethics, fuck empathy for intelligent beings, fuck ecosystems, libertarianism fuck yeah! On some level I envy you that you have one belief system you think works for everything.
Not libertarianism. But don't let that stop you from pathetic political pandering.
No, I think the idea is that once we have elephant breeded on ranches then the ivory becomes cheap and easily available thus making poaching business not profitable anymore, making wild elephants safe.
Of course the problem with that approach is that raising an elephant is not cheap, so ivory from domesticated elephants won't be that much cheaper. Unless you can make enough money on elephant's meat, which is also unlikely, since, as someone in this thread noticed, growing nice pair of tusks takes 50 years, and meat of old animals tend to taste much worse than that from younger ones.
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).
https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino_info/thorny_issues/dyeing...
[I]n terms of injecting dye mixed with poison into the horn (also discussed in our 'thorny issues'), it has been proven that rhino horn is not porous and that a liquid mix does not diffuse throughout the horn. In other words, the poison/dye mix remains in the drilled holes, making it relatively easy to remove and “detox” the horn if it is, indeed, to be consumed. Any remaining external discolouration can be sanded off. And tellingly, dyeing/poisoning Sabi Sands’ rhinos’ horns did not prevent animals from subsequently being poached.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.