risk and ethical concerns of hunting male elephant behavioural and physiological assays of the remaining elephants风险和伦理问题的狩猎雄性大象的行为学和生理学分析剩余的大象.pdfVIP

Risk and Ethical Concerns of Hunting Male Elephant: Behavioural and Physiological Assays of the Remaining Elephants 1 1 1 2 1 Tarryne Burke , Bruce Page , Gus Van Dyk , Josh Millspaugh , Rob Slotow * 1 Amarula Elephant Research Programme, School of Biological and Conservation Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, 2 Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, United States of America Abstract Background: Hunting of male African elephants may pose ethical and risk concerns, particularly given their status as a charismatic species of high touristic value, yet which are capable of both killing people and damaging infrastructure. Methodology/Principal Findings: We quantified the effect of hunts of male elephants on (1) risk of attack or damage (11 hunts), and (2) behavioural (movement dynamics) and physiological (stress hormone metabolite concentrations) responses (4 hunts) in Pilanesberg National Park. For eleven hunts, there were no subsequent attacks on people or infrastructure, and elephants did not break out of the fenced reserve. For three focal hunts, there was an initial flight response by bulls present at the hunting site, but their movements stabilised the day after the hunt event. Animals not present at the hunt (both bulls and herds) did not show movement responses. Physiologically, hunting elephant bulls increased faecal stress hormone levels (corticosterone metabolites) in both those bulls that were present at the hunts (for up to four days post-hunt) and in the broader bull and breeding herd population (for up to one month post-hunt). Conclusions/Significance: As all responses were relatively minor, hunting male elephants is ethically acceptable when