|
Home>News Center>China | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Tuskless elephants evolving due to poachers
More male Asian elephants in China will be born without tusks because poaching of tusked elephants is reducing the gene pool, a recent study predicts. Research by Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology with the college of life sciences at Beijing Normal University, discovered that the gene for tusklessness is spreading among the endangered species in its habitat in Yunnan Province of Southwest China. The gene, which exists in Asian elephants at a normal ratio of 2 to 5 per cent, has increased to 5 per cent to 10 per cent in China among males of the species, according to Zhang's research. "This decrease in the number of elephants born with tusks shows the poaching pressure for ivory on the animal," said Zhang, who has led his research group at the reserve in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture since 1999, where two-thirds of China's Asian elephants live. Their research involves about 100 Asian elephants living in the reserve area, of which only 20 are adult males. "We found two of 20 do not have tusks," Zhang said. Only male elephants have tusks, which are said to be a symbol of masculinity
and a weapon to fight for territory. However, due to poaching for ivory, the
elephants' pride has become a death sentence.
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
