fabsroman,
Do yourself a favor and go to Africa. I have hunted cape buffalo a few times and I can tell you that if I had the cash I would go every year. It is fun.......a lot of fun. It is visceral!
You will also enjoy hunting for Kudu.
As for relocating elephants.........................it is a great idea, but you have no idea how costly it is. It is a tough go on a local basis never mind relocating between countries. Not practical my friend. I am not saying that it isn't a good idea in a perfect world, but no game department could afford to do it on a big scale.
They do it regularly in South Africa......that is move a few elephant from Kruger or another park to a new game park location that needs to start a resident herd. But on a large scale, which is what we are talking about.......100's or 1000's of elephants.......no way.
You need semi sized transport trucks with special containers to house the animals during transport. Big winches, vets, helicopters, darting crew and many grunts.
Locally near home.......the national park was darting and collaring some elk for a study......costs ended up being $5000 per animal.
Even in Africa, where local labor is not pricey, by the time you factor in equipment, etc it costs many thousands per elephant to relocate on a small scale. Between countries where transport could be thousands of miles.......it ain't gonna happen. Millions of dollars would be involved and they do not have it in the first place. Better to let hunters drop a few trophy bulls at about $30,000 or so and sell a few non-trophy hunts for $12,000 to get the funds to manage the existing herd.
Africa is no different than here....developing yes, but the same problems. You can't have elephants in a lot of areas as they do what they want....travel....eat farmers crops etc. In some cases it is about as fanciful as it is to think we could still have the bison/buffalo.
Not going to happen! Thousands/millions of bison moving around doing what bison do would not allow for farms to exist would it. Like it or not, for the west to settle and the bread basket exist, the bison had to go.
I would be all for the US and Canada buying up thousands of farmers and turning the great plains back into a bison habitat.....but lets face it, that isn't going to happen.
In some parts of Africa the same problem exists with their wildlife and the growing human population. Elephant are big creatures and they need space......each country only has so much land that can be considered elephant territory. It is fair to say that some of those countries have no room for natural, free roaming elephant herds, any more than Kansas has room for a few hundred thousand bison to roam around.
In most areas bison are in fenced....finite....enclosures and they have to be culled to keep the herd in check with their surroundings. There are few true free range bison left in North America. Think about it....in the US, a small herd here or there in Arizona, around Yellowstone (they still hit fences when they leave the park), the herd in the Dakotas (a park and they still have to be culled), and Alaska (transplanted herds).
In Canada we have free ranging herds.....wood bison in the Northwest Territories, Wood Buffalo National Park in the NWT and Alberta, free ranging bison in northeastern British Columbia...free ranging but introduced. All areas with very few people.
That same requirement excists in Africa for free ranging elephant herds.........as the population grows and development takes place, suitable elephant areas decrease. Sad but true.
If you look at the big picture you will find that the illegal ivory trade and the ivory poaching all stemmed from a huge demand in the Asian market.....same as rhino horn, bear gall bladders, tiger parts, deer antler, snakes.........I could go on. Elephant were never endangered because a Yank or a Canuck wanted to have a set of 70 pount ivory teeth standing in their trophy room.
The world as a whole has actually done a good job of stemming the ivory trade. Pianos do not have ivory keys anymore and the demand for ivory knickknacks has subsided.....at least outside of the Orient.
As for the bears in Maryland........you can only have so many bears in a given area, especially when you have millions of people. If you have too many bears, shooting a few is the answer. Keep the population within a certain level and they will always have enough room to roam and enough to eat. When the population grows beyond the available habitat problems occur.
I hope you aren't thinking they should relocate them! We already have enough thanks!
