Desperate measure
To restrain the growth of Kruger's elephant population, 14,562 animals were culled from 1967 to 1995, when South Africa banned the practice. "It was extraordinarily traumatic," says Ian Whyte, the park's longtime elephant specialist, who witnessed many of the culls. "You had to shut your mind to it, otherwise you'd go mad." Now elephant specialists are being forced to consider culling again. While poaching continues to threaten elephants in Kenya and elsewhere, in southern Africa conservation measures have been so successful that populations are booming. In the 13 years since South Africa's culling ban, Kruger's elephants have increased from 8,000 to more than 13,000. The elephants, each eating about 400 pounds of food a day, are transforming the landscape, tearing through vegetation, pulling down or uprooting trees and stripping them of bark.