Using Elephant Carcass Ratios To Determine Population Trends. (1991)

Many African elephant populations have declined over the last two decades (Douglas-Hamilton. 1987). In most census zones, as the number of elephants decreases, the number of dead elephants increases. By counting both live and dead elephants a carcass ratio can be derived. This is the proportion of dead elephants to all elephants dead and live, and has been used as an index of relative elephant mortality (Douglas-Hamiton and Hillman, 1980).??In this paper successive counts of dead and live elephants in central, east, and southern Africa have been used to plot elephant trends against carcass ratios. It was found that the carcass ratio was correlated with the rate of decrease over a 4-yr period. The model was applied to new census data from Selous and Kilombero and found to give a close prediction of actual trends.