Several weeks ago, GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons posted a video showing him shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe. The video entitled, "Hunting Problem Elephant," can be found here. No doubt because of the controversy, the video has been drastically edited with over 4 minutes of footage removed. The removed footage included Parsons posing with the dead elephant (screen shot here), villagers celebrating the kill while wearing GoDaddy hats, and the elephant being butchered with AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" blaring in the background. Parsons describes his annual trek to Zimbabwe to kill elephants in glowing terms:
"It's one of the most beneficial and rewarding things I do."
The controversy surrounding the release of the video has been previously covered in a post by Ginja. Please give that post some lovin' and mojo. My objective is to discuss the larger deceptions about "problem elephants" promoted by Bob Parsons.
Parsons attempted to justify his trigger happiness as humanitarian in nature.
I spend a few weeks in Zimbabwe each year helping the farmers deal with problem elephants. The people there have very little, many die each year from starvation and one of the problems they have is the elephants, of which there are thousands and thousands, that trash many of their fields destroying the crops. The tribal authorities request that I and others like me, patrol the fields before and during the harvest -- we can't cover them all, there are just a few of us -- and drive the elephant from the fields. The farmers try to run the elephants away by cracking whips, beating drums and lighting fires. All of this is ignored by the elephants. When my team catch elephants in a field (there are never just one) we typically kill one of them and the rest leave for good. After we kill an elephant the people butcher the elephant and it feeds a number of villages. These people have literally nothing and when an elephant is killed it's a big event for them, they are going to be able to eat some protein. This is no different than you or I eating beef. If at all possible we avoid elephant cows and only kill mature bulls. By just killing bulls it has no effect on the elephant social structure (as it is matriarchal) as well as the herd size. The reason is another bull quickly steps up and breeds in place of the bull taken.
Crop damage from elephants is a problem that has arisen from the growth of the human population, compounded by declining rainfall associated with climate change. During the dry season, elephants are forced to forage over a large area, increasing human contact and crop damage. Killing the elephants does not solve the problem.
Parsons claims his actions protect the crops as well as provide needed food for the village. Killing an elephant does provide a few servings of protein for people in the surrounding area. However, the entire village could be fed for a year for what Parsons spends on his annual two-week shooting spree. The money could be better spent on improving agricultural methods, emergency food stocks, and research on ways to minimize crop damage from elephants.
"You can't control crop raiding in Africa through foreign hunters. It's not going to work. It's a perk for people who enjoy killing elephants to justify themselves."
Iain Douglas-Hamilton, conservationist and founder of Save the Elephants
Parsons falsely claims that there are "thousands and thousands" of elephants in the area around the village. It helps create the impression that the elephants are not endangered across most of their traditional habitats in Central Africa and need to be culled to protect the human population.
Selling hunting permits to well-heeled foreigners is part of a larger problem of poverty and corruption in Zimbabwe.
For one thing, the government deliberately inflates the number of elephants so they can allot a certain number to be killed. Last year they said 500 elephants could be killed. They say there are 100,000 elephants. From what I have found, the figure is more like between 30,000 and 35,000. They lie about the number so they can allow hunters to kill them. They use the income generated to pay the wages to the park staffers and to keep the parks running because they have no money. The villagers don't see a penny. [Park authorities] just sell them the meat.
The problem in Zimbabwe is the guardians of the wildlife are the perpetrators. We're the only country in Africa that shoots game to pay wages to national park guardians and ration meat to their staff. It's sick. You wouldn't tolerate it. Zimbabwe is the only country where some of the park guardians are politically connected and don't care about the animals. They're the ones benefiting economically from their killing, even though they are the ones who are supposed to protect them.
Conservationists and wildlife biologists have been studying ways to reduce elephant destruction of crops. One method involves "geofencing" around elephant preserves.
Geo-fencing refers to virtual fence lines within a computer GIS. In 2006 Save the Elephants erected the first ever virtual elephant fence in East Africa around Ol Pejeta Conservancy, using software from Yrless software company written for African Wildlife Tracking Ltd. The geofence followed the actual fence around the property. When a collared elephant passed through it, an SMS message was sent to the Ol Pejeta animal management team. Each fence break by an elephant resulted in the management team sending a vehicle filled with rangers to chase the elephant back onto the Ol Pejeta property.
Geofencing has two important limitations. It is primarily effective in identifying animals that have left the confines of established refuges, but will not work for elephants living outside the refuges. It also requires trained behavior specialists that work with the elephants to discourage intrusions into surrounding farms.
Another promising method involves the use of bees to protect the crops. Based on anecdotal reports that elephants have a natural aversion to bees, Oxford zoologist Lucy King began series of studies to reaction of African elephants to the sight, smell, and sounds associated with bees.
My project explores the use of bee populations in simple wooden beehives as an elephant deterrent and as a social and economic boost to poverty-stricken rural communities through the sustainable harvesting of honey. I’m leading this innovative project as part of my DPhil (PhD) research from Oxford University although I’m based in the Save the Elephants’ research camp in Samburu Game Reserve. My earlier research shows that elephants react to bee sounds with obvious alarm and retreating behaviour (see Publications). I am now working closely with Disney’s Bioacoustic Team in Florida to investigate this behaviour further and together we have discovered that elephants emit an alarm call when confronted by bees. Although my behavioural work continues, I am also looking at the use of live bees as protection around rural farmers fields.
King's work is a potential win-win for elephants and humans. Pilot studies (pdf) involving empty hives and inexpensive acoustic devices emitting bee colony sounds have proven to be an effective deterrent, eliminating the need to kill raiding elephants. The method involves hanging log segments containing empty hives at 25-foot intervals around crop areas (see page 3 of the report for details). For farmers, the use of bee hives has two advantages. It provides a low cost effective deterrent. Using live bees in place of acoustic devices improves pollination and gives farmers a low maintenance/high profit crop in the form of honey. Some training is required to manage live bee colonies and harvest the honey.
The use of bees appears to be more effective than other methods, including the use of chili peppers (high concentration capsaicinoid sprays), noise, and fires. King's work has been conducted in Kenya, but there are no reasons why it cannot be readily implemented in Zimbabwe and other African countries where elephant-human conflicts are becoming more frequent. Whether Zimbabwe officials will give up selling high-priced permits to wealthy foreigners to come kill elephants is another matter.
Parsons also minimizes the significance of his killing sprees on the elephants, showing his ignorance. Elephants are cognitively, behaviorally, and socially complex creatures. They are one of the few species that can self-recognize their own image in mirrors. They develop strong attachment bonds within herds, particularly among related individuals. A review paper published in the journal Nature in 2005 summarized evidence that shows that killing one member of an elephant group can have profound and negative impacts on the behavior of other members. In essence, surviving members are more likely to become aggressive towards humans when they witness humans killing a member of their herd. The effect is particularly strong for calves that witnessed the killing of their mother. A recent statistical study of African elephant interaction patterns highlights the complexity of their social behaviors. Interaction patterns were driven by kinship and seasonality. Close family units tend to stay together year round while the rest of herd shows a more elastic pattern of interaction based on season. During the dry season when food is scarce, the herd tends to disperse to minimize competition for food.
Parsons also claims only to target bulls, but the video shows him blasting away during the middle of the night under pitch black conditions. Presumably his team of compassionate hunters is wearing night vision equipment to avoid killing each other or other humans. However, there is no definitive proof of their selectivity of their targeting beyond the fact that the animal they show killed in the video was a bull.
The only solution to problem executives is to avoid their products. Ironically, the silver lining to this story is that GoDaddy competitors have been offering donations to the Save the Elephants for people who switch web hosting companies. So far, it has generated over $20,000 in donations from one of the competitors. Consider switching hosts and/or making a donation to Save the Elephants in honor of Bob Parsons.
Take Action:
To learn more:
Lucy King's publications
Save the Elephants
David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (h/t Mike08)
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Alternatives to GoDaddy:
Name Cheap
Network Solutions
Network Solutions was running a special to register a new domain or transfer and existing one using code: ELEPHANT. I not sure if it is still active.
Domain.com
Tiger Technologies - see comment by gooderservice for a discussion of advantages.