Importance of old bulls: Leaders and followers in collective movements of all-male groups in African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana)

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Allen, CRB, Brent, LJN, Motsentwa, T, Weiss, MN, Croft, DP
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Research 2020
• Subjects: Leadership; adolescence; male sociality; trophy hunting; collective movement; Orca; Orcinus orca
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/121702; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70682-y

This is the final version. Available on open access from Nature Research via the DOI in this record. Due to the sensitive nature of reporting on elephant locations and numbers, the data that support the findings of this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author. In long-lived social species, older individuals can provide fitness benefits to their groupmates through the imparting of ecological knowledge. Research in this area has largely focused on females in matrilineal societies where, for example, older female African savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) are most effective at making decisions crucial to herd survival, and old post-reproductive female resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) lead collective movements in hunting grounds. In pathways in Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Botswana, we found that the oldest males were more likely to lead collective movements. Our results challenge the assumption that older male elephants are redundant in the population and raise concerns over the biased removal of old bulls that currently occurs in both legal trophy hunting and illegal poaching. Selective harvesting of older males could have detrimental effects on the wider elephant society through loss of leaders crucial to younger male navigation in unknown, risky environments.