South Africa: Kind of dicks with their elephants

A zoo in Germany has successfully inseminated an elephant with frozen sperm, providing a means to keep biodiversity up in enclosed, protective environments. It’s essential because both African and Asian elephants are endangered due to poaching and destruction of their habitats. If only there was some place with an abundance of elephants so that zookeepers wouldn’t have to go to this trouble. If only …

Oh, and South Africa has started giving their elephants birth control because they have too many of them. The biggest problem is that they keep their elephants fenced in preserves, so they can’t relieve their numbers through normal means like, oh, we don’t know, migrating?

“‘Because we have taken away opportunities, they don’t have the chance to remedy the overpopulation naturally as they would through migration,’ said Audrey Delsink Kettles, an elephant ecologist who has been leading studies for years on contraception at Makalali Private Game Reserve” rather than put two and two together by reading two articles in the same damn newspaper today.

Look, scientists. The Guys aren’t trying to tell you how to do your jobs, but maybe it’s time to stop taking your cues from a cartoon coyote? He probably doesn’t have the elephants’ best interests at heart, and what’s he gonna do with them once he catches them?