NASA MARS HiRISE: Elephants and Floods of Lava

This Mars HiRise observation highlights terrain that looks like an elephant.

This is a good example of the phenomena "pareidolia," where we see things (such as animals) that aren't really there.

Actually, this image covers the margin of a lava flow in Elysium Planitia, the youngest flood-lava province on Mars.

Flood lavas cover extensive areas, and were once thought to be emplaced extremely rapidly, like a flood of water.

Most lava floods on Earth are emplaced over years to decades, and this is probably true for much of the lava on Mars as well. An elephant can walk away from the slowly advancing flow front.

However, there is also evidence for much more rapidly flowing lava on Mars, a true flood of lava. In this instance, maybe this elephant couldn't run away fast enough.

Note: the sub-image is not map-projected, so approximate North is down.

Do Elephants Really Run?

Seeing an elephant run may be as rare as seeing one fly. It turns out that instead of running in the conventional sense, they adopt a unique gait at speed, with the fore limbs trotting and the hind limbs walking.

Norman Heglund of the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Belgium and colleagues built an 8-metre-long platform to record the downward forces created when an elephant pounded over it.

This allowed them to calculate the changes in an elephant's centre of mass (COM). In all, 34 elephants at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang were walked slowly or "run" at speeds of up to 5 metres per second over the platform.

When most animals walk, their COM sways from side to side. This switches to bouncing like a pogo stick when they run, a motion that wastes energy. But the team found that an elephant travelling at speed keeps its COM at a constant height from the ground, even though its front legs bounce up and down in a trotting motion. The result is a pogo element to an elephant's motion, but no vertical shift in its COM.

John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK, who also studies elephant gait, questions whether it counts as running, as by some definitions all feet must be off the ground at the same time – something that does not happen with elephants.

Journal reference: The Journal of Experimental Biology, DOI: 10.1242/jeb.035436

Kenya ivory seizure reflects disappointing rise in poaching levels

Wildlife officials here Monday displayed more than half a tonne of recently-seized ivory, reflecting a rise in poaching they said was prompted by the controversial sale of stockpiled tusks last year.

The seizures in Kenya were part of what officials said was the largest-ever anti-poaching operation in East Africa, involving authorities in six states.

"Tons of illegal ivory have been seized and hundreds of people arrested in the largest-to-date international operation targeting wildlife crime across Eastern Africa," the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.

KWS official Patrick Omondi said the seizures showed an increase in poaching in Kenya and elsewhere, and highlighted a clear link with the UN-authorised one-off sale of more than 100 tonnes of stockpiled ivory by four southern African countries in 2008.

"We've seen an increase in poaching in the country and one of the factors is the sale," said Omondi.

"Kenya opposed it on the grounds it would stimulate illegal killing," Omondi said.

An official from Interpol's wildlife crime unit said: "The argument was that if we sold those stockpiles it would satisfy demand and put an end to poaching.

"That argument was false. When that ivory was sold, poaching was stimulated," the official said.

Interpol and other regional and international organisations were involved in the seizure operations that also included Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Detailed results from those countries have not yet been released.

The 568 kilos (1,252 pounds) put on display by Kenyan authorities in Nairobi on Monday was in addition to 532 kilos seized in the initial phase of the operation some three months ago.

The wildlife service's security chief, Peter Leitoro, claimed the seizures were a serious blow to poachers who were increasingly sophisticated and dangerous.

"We have seen the criminals getting more organised. In the past the charcters you were dealing with had bows and arrows. Today they are individuals with firearms," he told reporters.

The wildlife service used sniffer dogs to detect much of the ivory on display.

The ivory trade was banned in 1989 because poachers were wiping out elephant populations.

Kenya's elephant population shrank from 160,000 in 1973 to one tenth of that by the time the ban was introduced.

The ban on the international trade in ivory, the establishment of the KWS and anti-poaching measures have enabled the population to climb back up to some 35,000 currently.

The controversial UN-approved auction in October last year involved Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe and was conducted under the supervision of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Botswana: In conflict with success of Elephants

The landlocked southern African country has more than 150,000 elephants, a conservation success story that means the animals increasingly come into conflict with the growing human population.

Tourists love to watch herds of elephants trekking across Botswana's famed Okavango Delta, but nearby farmers watch in dismay when the animals trample their crops, leaving them little to eat. Now those farmers have a new, safe weapon to keep elephants at bay: chilli peppers.

Planted around crops, infused into cloth, even made into chilli-dung bombs -- Botswana's farmers are trying myriad uses of tabasco peppers whose potent smell repels elephants from their fields.

Government-sponsored training on how to use the chillis to best effect wrapped up last week, and farmers say they're optimistic the peppers will cut down on their crop losses as they begin planting this month.

"We are hopeful that this time around we will have better harvest unless if a natural disaster strikes," said Kgagiso Moruti, a 44-year-old villager from Eretshe village in the Okavango district.

"The problem has been the elephants, but now that we have been trained on how to deal with them, we have no doubt that we will reap what we sowed."

The landlocked southern African country has more than 150,000 elephants, a conservation success story that means the animals increasingly come into conflict with the growing human population.

"We have trained villagers in all methods of using chilli peppers to ward off elephants, which have always been a headache to them, especially when it comes to damaging crops," Gaseitsiwe Masunga, chief wildlife biologist for northern Botswana, told AFP.

Masunga said the chillis are best planted around the perimeter of maize and sorghum crops, acting as a buffer. If elephants wander in, the smell of the chillis crushed under their feet will drive them away.

Chillis can also be mixed with oil and infused into mutton cloth, which is then hung on a fence along the boundary of the field.

More dramatically, the peppers can be ground, mixed with dung and molded into bricks that can then be ignited when dry. The smoke emitted from the smouldering dung blocks causes elephants to retreat.

"The interesting thing about this programme is that villagers will kill two birds with one stone, as the chilli pepper will also provide a source of income for the communities as after harvest some of it will be sold in both the local and international market," Masunga said.

Another farmer, 38-year-old Tapelo Tawana, said if the programme works, his family should have enough food as well as some disposable income from the chilli crop.

"We would use the much-needed cash for the upkeep of our families," he said.

Similar schemes have paid off in Namibia and Zambia, where small farmers face similar threats from marauding elephants, said Conservation International programme cordinator Anna Songhurst.

"It worked in these countries and there is no way it can fail in Botswana as long as villagers follow what they were taught," she said.