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Tuskless elephants evolving due to poachers
"The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," Zhang said. "Therefore, the ones without tusks survive, preserving the tuskless gene in the species. "It is not the result of natural evolution. Rather, it is a reluctant choice made in the face of a gun." The depletion of the gene pool was explored in Uganda by Eve Abe, who commented that a gene for tusklessness is spreading throughout the elephant population in the country's Queen Elizabeth National Park, which experienced heavy poaching in the 1970s and '80s. However, Zhang's assertion about the tusklessness gene among the Asian elephants due to poaching remains in doubt among some international academicians. "This is, of course, a possibility, but till now there is no clear genetic proof that it can occur," said Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, a non-profit conservation organization that fights to prevent the destruction of India's wildlife. "The elephants will evolve towards higher security and evolve as tuskless. But we cannot say that it is already happening." So far, there are between 45,000 and 50,000 Asian elephants in 13 countries, including China and India. China only has about 250. Poaching is an alarming threat to the remaining few, in addition to the
problems of loss of habitat as a result of the invasion of human activity.
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