Scientists: Poaching likely created a generation of tuskless elephants

An example of evolution in action. Greedy morons who refuse to leave elephants with tusks alive have apparently created a kind of natural selection to make tusklessness more prevalent.

Scientists: Poaching likely created a generation of tuskless elephants



By STORM GIFFORD

Jan 16, 2019 | 6:55 PM

Power to the pachyderms!


After devastating poaching operations destroyed more than 90% of elephant populations in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park park during the Mozambique Civil War 30 years ago, the small number of survivors began reproducing and are growing again, reported ABC News.


But scientists who have been analyzing the herd have noticed a surprising trait among survivors — about 30% of new females were born without tusks.


“The key explanation is that in Gorongosa National Park, the tuskless elephants were the ones which eluded poaching during the civil war and passed this trait on to many of their daughters,” said researcher Dominique D’Emille Correia Goncalves.

... https://www.nydailynews.com/news/wo...eating-tuskless-elephants-20190116-story.html

 

Evolution in action.

 

Not "a kind of", it is classic natural selection. We are the predators. They are the prey. We just aren't eating them. But natural selection doesn't depend on motives.

 

I suppose. It's mostly how you want to look at it. We often refer to human influence on life's development as "artificial selection," so it's tempting to view this a little differently as well.

 

That is merely homocentricism at work. But to get specific, I would call intentional hybridization "artificial selection". This is where survival is not the driving force behind the selection process. For example, we see a great variety of artificial selection in dogs. But this situation was driven by the simple rule that having tusks makes an elephant less likely to survive - thus limiting its reproductive potential.

 

Those species that can adapt will survive, those that can't won't.

Good job by the elephants.

 

More of a good job by the basic evolutionary mechanisms we all share than by the elephants per se. All the same, it's a damned stupid reason for elephants to evolve that trait, isn't it? All just so some moronic bipedal apes can fashion status symbols out of the material.