More than half of female elephants in Mozambique are now being born without tusks, causing researchers to believe they may be evolving in response to poachers.
Elephant behavior expert and National Geographic explorer Dr. Joyce Poole says a once rare trait seen in only two to four percent of the female population rose to 50 percent in the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. Poole has been documenting tusklessness since the 1980s but says this time it’s different.
“The Gorongosa situation is particularly interesting because the level of tusklessness is so high and because what Gorongosa went through, well the elephants experienced a civil war, they were caught up in a civil war between 1974 and 1992.”
Poole says that civil war between the Renamo, a rebel group, and the government, caused elephants to be heavily poached and persecuted for their ivory and meat. Most that survived were naturally tuskless and this anomaly is hereditary.
“Tuskless females will pass on tusklessness to their daughters, not to their sons.”
She says that more research needs to be done to understand the genetics, but tuskless females produce tuskless daughters about 50 percent of the time. And with the resurgence of the ivory trade, she says it’s possible for that number to increase.