Postmortem pathological miscellanea recorded in African savannah elephants

Abstract

During elephant culling programmes in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania between 1965 and 1969, data were routinely collected to elucidate population dynamics (including 12 body measurements, 23 organ weights and reproductive status). Inevitably, during dissections, other observations emerged but were not catalogued. Some of these are presented here as an eclectic assembly of pathological notes to extend knowledge of savannah elephant biology. These specimens were obtained during government-authorised elephant-culling operations undertaken in East Africa in the 1960s. The prevailing management view was that elephants were so radically changing woodlands in favour of grassland that parks were losing both vertebrate and invertebrate faunas dependent upon trees and woodland. Controlled population reduction was therefore undertaken as a conservation-management intervention intended to stop habitat change.