Paul G. Allen's Great Elephant Census 2016

THE GREAT ELEPHANT CENSUS REPORT 2016

By Vulcan Inc.

18 countries in two years — an ambitious collaboration across borders, languages and cultures.

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Two years ago we set out to count Africa’s savanna elephants. Our goal was to learn how many are left and where poachers are killing them, then use this information to protect these iconic animals from potential extinction.

Our aerial survey spanned nearly 350,000 square miles in 18 countries, and our pilots and census crews followed strict protocols to ensure they gathered consistent data. Gathering good data is always vital, because it’s hard to improve what we don’t accurately measure. Data helps clarify challenges, letting us zero in on more effective approaches to overcoming them. This is especially true in the race to save elephants, whose numbers, as the Great Elephant Census (GEC) revealed, have declined even more than expected.

As discouraging as the elephant crisis is overall – poachers have been killing 25,000 to 35,000 every year – the GEC also revealed cause for hope. Some countries are doing an excellent job of protecting their elephant populations, and can serve as models elsewhere. In other countries where poaching is still rampant, the survey’s alarming results have already spurred officials to strengthen protections for surviving elephants, and to crack down on criminal networks driving their slaughter.

Even with this new data, saving the elephants remains a challenge of continental dimensions. But now that we know the scope of the problem and where to concentrate our resources, those tasked with protecting elephants can become more effective in their efforts. So to everyone who helped make the GEC possible, thank you for your dedication. We look forward to collaborating again as we press ahead in the next phase of this tough, urgent campaign.

Together, we will save Africa’s elephants.

The Great Elephant Census Team

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Why Count Elephants?

The Great Elephant Census (GEC) is the first pan-African survey of elephants using standardized data collection and validation methods. Conceived to fill critical gaps in data by providing reliable population information, the GEC surveyed more than 93 percent of the savanna elephant populations in 18 countries.

Why count elephants? Because they’re disappearing from African landscapes, and people – especially poachers, traffickers and consumers who buy ivory – are their greatest threat. Habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict have long impacted elephants, but since 2005 massive poaching driven by the illegal global trade in ivory has been devastating many elephant populations. The last status report on Africa’s elephants was published in 2007, at the start of the current decline, and no one – until the launch of the GEC – had ever surveyed the majority of key elephant populations using standardized protocols. An accurate count is critical for targeting resources, identifying successes and failures, and holding stakeholders accountable for elephant protection.

Through his company Vulcan Inc. and projects such as the GEC, technologist and philanthropist Paul G. Allen helps African countries to understand the status of their elephants and other wildlife and to equip local stakeholders with technology, skills and resources to protect them. As part of this, Vulcan works to educate the citizens of both the countries where elephants roam and countries that consume ivory products through storytelling, data visualization, film, and advocacy. With GEC data, countries and their citizens will be empowered to monitor, protect and fight for their wildlife, while also meeting the needs of local communities.

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How Do You Count Elephants?

A landmark endeavor both in scale and technological innovation, the Great Elephant Census was carried out by national parks and wildlife staff in 18 countries with support from a partnership of seven NGOs, 90 scientists and 286 crew, all engaged and coordinated by Vulcan in partnership with principal investigator Mike Chase, the founder of Elephants Without Borders. A ten-member Technical Advisory Group of independent experts (listed on page 17) established standardized methodologies at the project’s outset and reviewed and validated survey results and reports upon their completion.

For the Great Elephant Census, most of the elephants were counted through evenly spaced sample counts – where a portion (generally 5-20%) of an area is surveyed and then statistical modeling is used to extrapolate findings to the whole area. Sample counts are based on the widely accepted methodology pioneered by Mike Norton-Griffiths in the 1970s. Groups of ten or more elephants were also photographed with GPS-enabled cameras. Extremely densely populated areas, or those with a few very large herds, were tallied through elephant-by-elephant total counts. In order to facilitate historical comparisons with previous surveys, a few areas were counted through block counts.

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CENSUS BY THE NUMBERS 40 years since last census 90 scientists 7 NGO partners 286 crew people 350,000 square miles 18 countries 93% of savanna elephant population surveyed 30% decline in 7 years* *In the 15 countries with comparative data

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Vulcan Technology built a data-logger to improve accuracy and auditing.

Technical advisor Howard Frederick explains how the data-logger works.

Two bars affixed to the plane frame the area to be counted as census takers fly along transect lines.

Bringing Technology to the Field Vulcan’s developers built a central database to collect all raw data from survey flights. This data is available for analysis to any researcher who receives permission from participating governments and survey implementers. Due to concerns that manually recording time, altitude, speed, and GPS coordinates for each elephant group is intrinsically error-prone and does not provide a verifiable audit trail, Vulcan built a data-logger to capture such data automatically in each survey plane.

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The GEC not only counted live elephants, but dead ones, too. Spotters tallied elephant carcasses to identify poaching hotspots. While carcass counts must be considered with care because carcasses are easy to miss and carcass decay rates vary in different climates, a carcass ratio of more than 8 percent indicates poaching at a level high enough to cause a declining population. The GEC also counted other wildlife, livestock, and even the presence of humans and houses. Like the elephant data, this information is available to inform researchers’ understanding of the status of other species, and to look for relationships between these variables.

Great Elephant Census Findings The Great Elephant Census revealed that Africa’s savanna elephant population has been hit hard by poaching: the GEC counted 352,000 savanna elephants across GEC sites in 18 countries and an 11.9 percent average carcass ratio. For those sites in 15 countries for which GEC data could be compared to previous elephant counts, populations declined 30 percent between 2007 and 2014, a loss of 144,000 elephants in these sites alone. According to statistical models the rate of decline reached 8 percent in 2014.

The GEC exposes recent sharp declines in some of Africa’s largest savanna elephant populations, and corroborates findings from Sam Wasser’s recent DNA study (also supported by Vulcan) tracking the geographic source of vast quantities of ivory confiscated at ports around the globe. In this study, Tanzania and Mozambique were found to be the top sources of ivory from savanna elephants, and the GEC estimated

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Elephant population trends in GEC landscapes over the past ten years based on GEC data and comparable previous surveys (methodology in Chase et al. 2016). Red landscapes declining >5%/year, orange declining 2-5%/year, yellow declining or increasing <2%/year, pale green increasing 2-5%/year, dark green increasing >5%/year. Most elephant loss occurred in Tanzania and northern Mozambique.

Surprises included the increase in the trans-border areas in West Africa and in Kafue, Zambia.

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Poaching Hotspots Tanzania and Mozambique’s elephants experienced staggering population declines, and the same appears to be true with Angola. Elephant populations are on the verge of local extinction in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, northern Cameroon and southwest Zambia. In the face of poaching and encroachment, small herds were isolated and searching for safety. The Babile Elephant Sanctuary in Ethiopia, overwhelmed by human settlement, was lacking its own namesake.

South Africa, Uganda, parts of Malawi and Kenya, and the W-Arli-Pendjari (WAP) conservation complex of protected areas that span Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso were found to have stable or even slightly increasing elephant populations. Although in some cases, such as Uganda and WAP, relatively high carcass ratios or estimates of the percentage of illegally killed elephants (PIKE) suggest this may be due in part to compression of elephants into the parks from surrounding areas. In the WAP complex, the population has doubled since the last count in 2003. With the last large population of savanna elephants in West Africa, WAP may merit greater conservation attention and investment.

Zambia and Zimbabwe showed wide internal variation in population status in different parts of the country, with parks adjacent to countries with poor elephant protection (e.g. Angola) and those with no NGO presence faring badly but populations stable or increasing in parks further from trouble spots.

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Great Elephant Census: What’s Next?

Country-specific GEC results have been released as they have become available. Full GEC results have also been shared with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to include in the 2016 African Elephant Status Report, enabling the GEC data to be combined with nonGEC information on forest and savanna elephant populations for a more complete continental picture. Interested parties can also visualize, explore and download (as allowed by contractual arrangements) the GEC data through a state-of-the art web platform at www.elephant-atlas.org. GEC principal investigator Mike Chase and conservation colleagues have analyzed and modelled GEC data and published a peer-reviewed scientific paper in PeerJ www.https://peerj.com/articles/2354/ Sharing the data GEC results have been shared and made widely available through multiple channels for several reasons: •

To inform countries about the status of their elephant populations, so they can take necessary action to protect them in a timely manner

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To inform the global conservation community of the status of elephants in Africa overall, as well as in specific countries and landscapes, in order to inform sound decision-making at IUCN’s World Conservation Congress, the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species Conference of Parties, and elsewhere

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To inform future conservation planning, including the allocation of global resources for elephant conservation and tourism

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To provide a consistent baseline for measuring ongoing changes in elephant populations

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Better methods and technology The GEC has helped train a new generation of observers and scientists across Africa in state-of-the art survey techniques. The flight data loggers will continue to be made available to streamline data collection. And the GEC’s raw sightings database – the first of its kind – provides a model for storing all future survey data in a format that enables further analyses and time-comparisons. In response to a request from Tanzanian officials, Vulcan is building a similar database system for all national wildlife survey data in that country.

Future survey priorities The GEC embarked on surveys of South Sudan and the Central African Republic, but political insecurity and logistical challenges delayed efforts.

Surveys are expected to be completed in 2016.

By combining GEC results with results from other savanna areas in Africa, notably Namibia, one can accurately estimate total savanna elephants at around 400,000, a substantial decline from previous estimates, though this number must be treated with care because no one knows how many savanna elephants live at low densities scattered across areas too large to survey scientifically. Reliably estimating total elephants in Africa is even more difficult because no recent scientifically validated estimate exists for the number of forest elephants in Central and West Africa. To address this gap, Vulcan is embarking with its partners on a range-wide count of forest elephants.

Photos on opposite page from top left to right: 1. A simulation of new intelligence monitoring developed

by Vulcan’s technologies team.

2. Kenya’s April 2016 ivory burn torched 105 tons of ivory from the country’s stockpile.

3. An unexpected herd is located in Ethopia.

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Beyond Counting Paul G. Allen’s ultimate goal in launching the Great Elephant Census was to inform and strengthen efforts to protect Africa’s elephants. To this end, Vulcan initiatives that are leveraging GEC data to protect elephants include: •

The creation of a computer visualization system that enables park managers to track movements of elephants and other animals, rangers, vehicles, and other events in their parks, as they happen.

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The development of unmanned aerial vehicle systems to strengthen antipoaching surveillance.

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Support for the identification, apprehension and successful prosecution of wildlife trafficking kingpins in Indonesia, Tanzania and Zambia.

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Support for DNA and isotope sampling and analysis of seized ivory to identify the original elephant source herds, as well as the date of the poached ivory, to provide evidence for investigators and prosecutors working to combat trafficking.

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Successful support for new laws in Washington State and Hawaii, and a current ballot measure in Oregon, to ban trade in endangered wildlife products such as ivory.

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Support for motions at the World Conservation Congress and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that encourage all nations to pass similar bans.

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Production of three documentary films for 2016 release on elephants and the ivory crisis – Naledi, Mind of a Giant, and The Ivory Game – to increase knowledge of and support for elephant conservation and opposition to the ivory trade.

By revealing a more detailed picture of elephant populations and the threats confronting them, the GEC has helped highlight conservation successes and expose the areas where elephants are currently at greatest risk. This data will help stakeholders set clear priorities and invest conservation resources more wisely to save one of the noblest and most endangered creatures on Earth.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the following people and groups for your dedication to wildlife conservation.

Partners and Organizations

Core Team

Elephants Without Borders African Parks Frankfurt Zoological Society IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group Kevin Dunham Save The Elephants The Nature Conservancy Wildlife Conservation Society

Paul G. Allen Jody Allen Mike Chase James Deutsch Kathleen Gobush Dune Ives Lauren Kickham Kelly Landen Kirk Larsen Joel Masselink Ted Schmitt Dave Stewart

Technical Advisory Group Mike Chase Iain Douglas-Hamilton Howard Frederick Curtice Griffin Ferina Keshaviee Richard Lamprey Mike Norton-Griffiths Scott Schlossberg Chris Thouless George Wilson

A special thank you to each of the governments of the 18 countries who have participated in the Great Elephant Census. The fate of your elephants is in your hands.

For more information about the GEC and to visualize the GEC data, visit www.elephant-atlas.org. To seek permission to access GEC data contact elephants@vulcan.com

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#ELEPHANTSCOUNT

Explore the GEC data: www.elephant-atlas.org