The Addo elephants
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Staff and students of NMMU’s
Terrestrial Ecology Research Unit have been undertaking
research on the world-famous Addo elephants for over a
decade, and this work is making groundbreaking contributions
to the issue of conservation of biodiversity, as well
as providing new insights into elephant biology. The focus
has been on the elephants as well as the impact on their
habitat. In order to study the elephants at an unprecedented
detail, every animal is known and the project has records
of births and deaths for each elephant back to 1931 –
probably the most comprehensively known population of
large wild animals in the world.
Research on their impacts has shown that elephants influence
every aspect of biodiversity that has been investigated
– mostly in a negative fashion. This population
represents an important opportunity for the NMMU to train
top-quality students and produce valuable research. |
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