Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due to ivory poaching

Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by jbay808 on Wednesday October 27, 2021 @05:51PM (#29019563)

Further to your point, I read elsewhere that the base rate in captivity is closer to 0.5%.

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Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by Stevvo on Wednesday October 27, 2021 @08:09PM (#29020753)

Human behavior probably has the opposite effect in captive elephants. If a captive elephant is born without tusks then the Mahout is going to kill it rather than invest in rearing an animal that has much reduced utility and will not yield healthy offspring.

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Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by unmole on Wednesday October 27, 2021 @11:02PM (#29021897)

Elephants are not really bread in captivity.

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Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by tokai on Thursday October 28, 2021 @03:45AM (#29023464)

They are bread in captivity. In Europe the breeding is organized by the European Endangered Species Programme.

https://nhatrangbay.net.vnwww.eaza.net/assets/Uploads/EAZA-D...

https://www.elephant.se/elephant_breeding_in_europe.php

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Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by Moghammed on Thursday October 28, 2021 @04:39AM (#29023776)

I highly doubt those elephants are getting killed if they don't have tusks, though.

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Re:Female African elephants are evolving without tusks due t... by bruckie on Thursday October 28, 2021 @12:27AM (#29022386)

While that's generally true, there are exceptions. Elephants at the Oregon Zoo have birthed more than two dozen babies over the past several decades. https://www.oregonzoo.org/node/1948/media

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