The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one of the largest conservation areas in the world, he observed movement patterns and trends never seen before. “It was like a parallel universe that had opened up,” Naidoo, lead scientist of wildlife conservation at the World Wildlife Fund, told Mongabay in a video interview. Unlocking that universe took a mammoth collaboration that involved collaring 300 African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in an area that spans five countries and is home to the largest population of African elephants in the world. The final result is possibly one of the largest databases of GPS-collared elephants. It contains close to 4 million data points that depict elephant movements and identify key connectivity areas and corridors for conservation purposes. A study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology documented how teams from WWF along with nonprofit organizations such as Ecoexist and Elephant Connection, among others, collaborated on the project, which used data collected over the past 15 years to examine connectivity for elephants. Based on the elephants’ movements, the team assessed landscape connectivity at three scales: a zoomed-in micro perspective, between protected areas as well as across the wider landscape. According to the study, each of these scales represented “a movement process whose maintenance is critical to effectively conserve elephants across the entire landscape.” African elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, are an endangered…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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South Africa Today – Environment
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