Before the term "proffessional ivory hunter" became synonomous with "proffessional criminal", the big game hunters that dared to risk their lives to exposure, hostile tribes, and of course, death via pachyderm, were seen as nothing less than the finest sportsmen the world had to offer. I'm not talking about the chest beating money tychoons who assasinate elephants from two-hundred yards with long range rifles between games of billiards and glasses of scotch (with ice, of course). I'm talking about the dirt poor, early African adventurers who got up close in the thick African bush to bet their lives on a single shot as they were charged by twelve thousand pounds of angry elephant from mere yards away. Keep in mind, as Peter Capstick points out, that elephant hunting yards are much shorter than Super Bowl yards. These men made a living like this. And as they passed their deadliest of trades on from one generation to the next, something very interesting started to happen. Over time, it became increasingly difficult to find what is reffered to in big game hunting lingo as a "big tusker".
We have all heard this before. If you don't hunt then you no doubt know someone who does. And the stories are always the same. The biggest fish, well, that one was caught a long time ago before you were born. That trohpy deer on the wall, the really fine one with twelve points, you won't see those anymore. And oh yes, the "big tuskers" that seemed to be everywhere so long ago aren't much more than a story now. And although most of these stories are chalked up by the younger generations as modern tall tales of yesterday's sportsmen, there is an uncomfortable amount of truth to them. You see, big game animals are disapearing and the ones that are left seem to be getting smaller and smaller. This is most evident in the records of pro ivory hunting.
The largest elelphant on record, dead or alive, was shot in the Cuando river region of Angola in 1955 by J.J. Fenykovi. It stood a massive 13 feet and 2 inches tall and weighed in at 24,000 pounds! It is currently on exhibit in the rotunda of the U.S National History Museum. The tusks weighed in at almost 200 pounds per side. But those aren't the biggest tusks on record. The biggest tusks on record are generally thought to be from an elephant either shot or found -depending on who you ask- on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro late in the 19th century. They fetch a weight in the neighborhood of 210 pounds per side and were reported to weigh 226 and 214 pounds per side when originally found (ivory dries out over time and loses weight). They measure an incredible length of 10 feet, 2 1/2 inches and 10 feet, 4 inches. Elephant tusks of this size are unheard of today.
Should you be interested in ivory hunting as a fan of hunting or merely for historical records concerning the history of human interaction with elephants, you will no doubt become familiar with names such as W.D.M. "Karamojo" Bell, Aurther Newman, and Wally Johnson. These are the big names of elephant hunting and in the case of Aurther Newman, African big game hunting in general. Should you pick up a copy of Rolland Ward's Record Book, which is the official log for records in African big game, you will no doubt find these names enshrined there. In studying these giants of hunting, it is very interesting to notice how in the chronological order of their respective hunting careers, each man recorded seeing fewer truly large elephant and tusk specimens than the hunter before him. Ivory hunters refered to elephants by the weight of their heaviest tusk. If the elephant being mentioned had a pair of tusks that weighted 80 pounds and 78 pounds per side, that elephant would be refered to as an "80 pounder". Wally Johnson mentiones off handidly in his autobiography "The Last Ivory Hunter" that he had seen more than a few "100 pounders" and what he presumed, most certainly correctly after fifty years experience, to be a "150 pounder". Peter Capstick, the co-auther and editor of Johnson's biography, himself a renowned hunter and elephant cropping officer, reports in his book "Death In the Long Grass" that in his entire career he had seen only three that cut the 100 pound mark. Today, most elephants are closer to fifty pounds per side.
The reason elephant ivory, along with other specimen of game, seem to be continually shrinking is because they have been caught in the balance between genetics and human nature. In nature, predators target the smallest and weekest prey animals to ensure their chances of a successful kill. Wolves for example, target the young, sick, or genetically inferior elk specimen within the herd. Because this animal is killed, it is unable to pass it's genes on to the next generation and because of this, the stronger and healthier elk survive and breed the next season. Through this process, the elk become bigger, stronger, and faster over time because those are the genes that survive to be passed on to the next generation. When human beings hunt, the process works exactly the opposite. Because we as humans prefer to hunt for trophies, we intentionally target the biggest, strongest, and healthiest animals we can find. We effectively eliminate the healthiest genes from the gene pool and because of this, only the smaller and weaker animals, be they deer, bass, or the mighty elephant, survive to breed the next season. The reason elephant ivory is smaller than it used to be is because the genes for large ivory were not passed to future generations of elephants. The animals that posseded those genes are stuffed and mounted in the African exhibits of the world's museums and private game collections. It is natural selection in reverse. I understand that strict seasonal laws, game tag limits, and proper hunting regulations are intended to limit this problem, but the results speak lounder than the legislation. Game animals, on average, are getting smaller and smaller. It's no coincindence that your grandfather has more stories about big fish than your dad, who undoubtedly has more stories about said fish than you.
Such is the nature of elephant ivory and shrinking animals. Wouldn't you know it's our fault?
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