Robin Mackey Has an Elephantine Task

Robin MackeyEcologist Robin Mackey, BSc’89, MSc’92, finds herself knee-deep in dung samples some days, and those are days she loves. That dung belongs to elephants in South Africa. As a post-doctoral researcher in conservation ecology, it’s Mackey’s job to examine the elephant population growth in many of the country’s parks and reserves and help managers determine the most effective policies for managing their elephant populations.

The fieldwork portion of her job is a small one, but it’s the icing on the cake as far as Mackey’s concerned. Last year, she travelled to seven parks and game reserves to help other researchers with their work as well. She’ll spend anywhere from five to 10 hours a day driving and walking around the parks collecting data to determine how the elephants impact vegetation, studying their family relationships, or observing the stress levels imposed by tourists. “I get little rest while I’m in the field, but the work is exciting and it’s always an incredible experience being immersed in such spectacular landscapes and with such friendly people,” says Mackey.

Mackey spends the majority of her time in her office in Durban, however, examining census data. She uses her findings to make predictions about future population growth rates of the elephant populations that exist across South Africa. Her findings are “plain and simple; South Africa has more elephants than the current protected habitat can support.” All the elephants are in fenced protected areas and there are artificial waterholes across their habitat, so poaching or drought isn’t a problem. And the massive pachyderms don’t have any natural predators within in the parks. They’re simply living their full lives without any risks; and they’re multiplying quickly. Many of the elephant populations that came to South Africa were orphans that arrived during the translocation policies of the 1980s and 1990s. “This created populations with altered age structures and social behaviours. Females are now reaching sexual maturity and having their calves three to seven years earlier than before … Populations are doubling in fewer than 10 years,” explains Mackey.

Because the populations are now so large, translocation is no longer a viable option for managing them. Mackey says this leaves contraception or culling as the options. Contraception is carried out by vaccinating female elephants via a dart, shot either from a helicopter or from a distance on land. But this is still in its field-testing stages. And Mackey admits, “Despite the current legal and ethical issues surrounding culling, I’m also modeling various culling scenarios for the parks in the country.”

Tough decisions lie ahead for Mackey and the managers she works with. But elephants are the second-most destructive species on the planet—humans being the first. The destruction of the trees and natural habitat due to the large numbers of elephants can “lead to changes in and loss of species diversity of everything from other plants and other herbivores to birds and insects.” Mackey also points out that tourists want to see picturesque landscapes dotted with trees, but they also want to see elephants. It’s a delicate balance, and one that Mackey says is the “most interesting, challenging, and enjoyable work I have every done.”

By Leslie Strudwick