A struggle for survival: The elephant problem - Professor John Hanks (First edition)

In the days of plenty the African elephant roamed at will; home was a vast continent and he trumpeted his ownership to endless blue skies. His bounty was boundless and undisputed.

Today, disinherited and confined by man, the legacy has been limited. The extravagant and wasteful feeding habits acquired in antiquity now threaten not only the elephant’s own survival, but that of the other indigenous fauna and flora within the very sanctuaries set aside for protection. The days of plenty are over, and for his captors the dilemma now is: ‘to cull, or not to cull?’

Professor John Hanks, in this eminently readable account of ‘the elephant problem’, defuses the emotion-charged argument. He writes clearly and simply about the effects on elephants of their restriction, their fascinating ‘built-in’ birth control, their mortality and birth-rates, and their devastating eating habits.

A Struggle for Survival: The Elephant Problem presents, for all those who appreciate the urgency of the question (and, more particularly, for all those who do not), a lucid account of the options open to us to ensure the elephant’s survival.