African elephants are being born without tusks due to poaching

a reply to: loam

I find it hard to believe that this mutation would happen so quickly.

So if we cut the smallest toe off of each newborn within a few generations it would be eliminated? If that is in fact true we should be looking to modify certain bones to make the stronger to test this theory...

a reply to: Sillyolme

Genetics from school is a bit different from todays research. Epigenetics have shown to be heritable. Epigenetics are supposed to get erased during embyonic development but a low percentage survive and imprint
A greatgrandparents diet has an effect on great grand children

a reply to: Spacespider

Are you really trying to equate poachers and hunters?

a reply to: chrismarco

You're missing an important requirement. They have to die...or at least not procreate.

Being born tuskless is a natural variation. When suddenly the only mates around are ones who have no tusks, they produce offspring with no tusks.

a reply to: loam

This image looks like a class lesson on how to remove something from an image in Photoshop (I'm not saying that's what's going on here, but it just has that look).

But your article specifically notes this point:

In Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, 90 per cent of elephants were slaughtered between 1977 and 1992, during the country's civil war. Dr Poole said that because poachers disproportianetly targetted tusked animals, almost half the females over 35 years of age have no tusks, and although poaching is now under control and the population is recovering well, they are passing the tuskless gene down to their daughters: 30 per cent of female elephants born since the end of the war also do not have tusks.

Knowing what I know about nature, if tusks are a big advantage and necessary for the females to live a long life, the tusked gene pool will eventually win out again. If not, look at the tusks like deer antlers--males have them, females do not, and the species survives just fine.

My overlying point being that, if tusks are irrelevant to the survival of the females and the species as a whole, the reality that many are born without them is an irrelevant issue if they are tantamount to a vestigial organ, so to speak. If the outrage is behind the "why" (the animals being hunted for their tusks), maybe it's a good thing that this mutation may bleed into and overtake the population--not ideal, like the article notes, but an okay thing in the grand scheme of elephanthood.

Please note that I'm talking about necessity--yes, the article states that tusks are used to dig for food and water, amongst other things, but are they able to do that well without them? The fact that there is such a high population of elephants without tusks surviving and repopulating the species tells me that a tuskless elephant appears (on the surface, at least) to be doing just fine.

a reply to: loam

Sad but at the same time... a blessing in disguise? Maybe?

Less Elephants will be hunted and/or killed whixch means they can thrive once more...