Why removing artificial water sources benefits elephants and their habitats
Why removing artificial water sources benefits elephants and their habitats
Peter Borchert, iFaw
March 21, 2025
See link
https://www.ifaw.org/international/journal/why-removing-artificial-water-sources-benefits-elephants-and-their-habitats
for photo
Elephants need water—lots of it. Depending on their size, they must drink
100 to 200 litres at least every two to three days to avoid potentially
severe dehydration. In hot weather, an elephant can lose as much as 7.5% of
its body mass daily due to dehydration. So, water availability,
particularly in dry seasons and drought, is critical to elephant survival.
Water dictates where elephants roam, limiting their foraging range to areas
close to rivers, lakes, pans, and other wetlands. For example, elephant
herds with calves stray no further than 10 kilometres from water.
If left to their own devices and given enough space, elephants migrate in
response to rainfall variability, prompting predictable seasonal land-use
patterns. For instance, in dry times, elephants will gather around
perennial rivers and other permanent water sources. At the same time, in
the wetter months, herds will disperse widely to take advantage of seasonal
streams and ephemeral pans. Such natural ebbs and flows allow riparian
vegetation to recover from the intense feeding pressure of elephants and
other browsers.
However, human-created watering points disrupted this cycle in one of
Africa's foremost conservation areas, Kruger National Park. This practice
of providing access to permanent artificial water sources began in the
1930s and accelerated dramatically in the 1960s and 70s. Over this time,
more than 300 boreholes were drilled, and 50 dams were constructed in
Kruger.
The motivation was to improve wildlife numbers, and initially, it was
successful. But there were unintended consequences—the constant
availability of water interfered with the natural movement patterns of
elephants, resulting in unsustainable damage to vegetation, which
eventually led to the culling of elephant populations—which continued until
the ideas behind IFAW’s Room to Roam initiative began to take hold.
Conservationists now think of elephant conservation in a new way.
Why artificial water sources were created
We need to go back in time to understand why this was done. During the 19th
and early 20th centuries, elephants and other wildlife were severely
depleted across southern Africa and, in some cases, driven to extinction by
excessive hunting. The rinderpest epidemic in the 1890s also devastated
hooved animals. Therefore, wildlife densities were low in much of the land
that came to be set aside for conservation. For example, some experts
believed that in the early 1900s, there could have been as few as 6,000
elephants across the region.
Wildlife managers at the time saw two opportunities to rectify the
situation: to install fences to confine and protect the animals already
there and provide them with year-round water, increasing their chances of
survival and growing their populations. Also, the animals would be
concentrated in areas where tourists could easily view them.
The thinking made sense, and the water began flowing to a rapidly growing
network of reservoirs. Elephants and many other species were drawn in
numbers to the water, and their numbers grew with plenty to eat and drink.
However, the benefit to the animals and the game-viewing public came at a
cost. Elephants and other animals now had little reason to disperse. Very
quickly, the increased wildlife density, plus the constant activity and
feeding pressure around these artificial waterholes, led to the depletion
of the surrounding vegetation, exacerbating food scarcity, especially
during droughts.
By then, any options the elephants might have had to explore food resources
further afield had been removed due to fences and human settlement. With
elephants never having to travel more than five kilometres for water, bare
land around waterholes became the norm. Trees disappeared from the horizons
they had once dominated.
Agricultural logic—keeping animal populations below the limits dictated by
the land—dominated wildlife management thinking of the time. So, whatever
threatened to throw off the ‘Nature of Balance’ had to be controlled. For
some three decades, this dogma of controlling numbers to keep them below
the land’s ‘carrying capacity’ ruled. This was calculated at ‘about one
elephant per square mile’ for elephants, not based on science but merely on
opinion.
The failure of culling
So, culling was deemed the solution. From the 1960s to the 1990s, wildlife
managers believed that reducing elephant numbers would restore ecological
balance. However, it failed to address the real issue—human interference
with natural movement patterns. And so, despite the killing of tens of
thousands of elephants in Kruger and elsewhere across southern Africa, tree
loss and land degradation continued.
Furthermore, after culling operations, the elephant population soon
recovered, rapidly expanding once more because of the continued
availability of water and the presence of fencing, which eliminated the
natural role of droughts and migration in controlling their numbers. Water
provisioning also increased antelope populations, leading to overgrazing
and altered ecological dynamics. Scientists began to realise that culling
was not a viable solution.
Elephant birth and death rates fluctuate naturally because of variations in
food and water availability. These resources also impact the seasonal
migrations of herds. The assumption that elephant numbers caused habitat
destruction was flawed and lacked proper scientific backing. Over time, a
better scientific understanding evolved regarding the ecological processes
at stake, and the impact of elephants on vegetation was found to be more
closely linked to human interventions, such as artificial water sources and
fencing, as they disrupt natural population control mechanisms.
A better understanding of elephant ecology
This new thinking began to prevail despite strong opposition from some
quarters. The late Professor Rudi van Aarde, head of the Conservation
Ecology Research Unit at the University of Pretoria, led the way as he and
his colleagues conducted in-depth studies of elephant dynamics in response
to water provisioning, the presence of fences, and the practice of culling.
Today, elephant numbers in southern Africa’s protected areas remain
relatively high—but interventions are needed to counter potential habitat
degradation for the species across the continent. The key is that these
interventions should address not the symptoms (elephant numbers) but the
root cause of habitat degradation—water provisioning and fencing.
Without interventions to protect the landscapes, elephants will continue to
be confined to restricted areas, leading to long-term ecological damage,
which, if unchecked, may negatively impact biodiversity.
So, rather than controlling elephant numbers through culling, Rudi and his
team argued, with science-backed justification, for a focus on restoring
natural limiting factors. Artificial waterholes and fences must be reduced
to allow seasonal migrations that regulate populations and their ecological
impact.
Success backed by science
Management efforts in Kruger now support this approach. In 1994, 12
boreholes were closed, and one earth dam was drained. Culling ceased in
1995. Today, more than half of the artificial water points have been closed.
Also, some fences have been removed under transboundary conservation
agreements. Consequently, the modelled population growth has slowed to an
estimated third of its previous rate.
Longer-term conservation strategies for Kruger and other key landscapes
must continue prioritising the restoration of space rather than population
control. By expanding protected areas through transboundary conservation
projects, connecting them via corridors and buffer zones embracing adjacent
communities and their land, we can create ‘megaparks’ to accommodate
elephant ‘metapopulations’.
These vast, interconnected conservation areas will allow elephant numbers
to naturally ebb and flow in response to seasons and more extreme events
such as drought and floods. Several initiatives in southern and East Africa
already link reserves across borders, fostering natural population
dynamics. The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) was one of southern
Africa’s first formally established ‘peace parks’.
The IUCN developed the peace park concept in the 1980s to embrace
transboundary conservation areas dedicated to promoting and commemorating
peace and cross-border cooperation. The 13.5 million-square-mile Great
Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) links Limpopo, Banhine,
and Zinave National Parks in Mozambique; Kruger in South Africa; and
Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe.
Future conservation efforts should focus on creating such interconnected
landscapes rather than managing wildlife populations with fences and
artificial water points. This conviction is core to IFAW's Room to Roam
vision of securing and connecting habitats to create safe passages for
elephants and other wildlife to travel freely, without human constraint,
and benefit the landscape rather than degrading it. The positive outcomes
of this far-reaching initiative will be greater biodiversity, natural
resilience to climate change, and a future where animals and people can
coexist and thrive.