You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 14-26, which are based on Reading Passage 2 below.
Understanding and Protecting Elephants
A
The future of the African elephant is at risk. They are often shot by poachers for their ivory and this is responsible for most of the decline in elephant numbers. But habitat loss is important too, and not just the changing of bush into farmland. Roads, railways and fences stop elephants moving around, and an elephant needs a lot of room. According to George Wittemyer of Save the Elephants, an average elephant ranges over 1,500 square kilometres over a year and may travel as much as 60 kilometres a day.
B
The question is whether elephants and people can ever coexist peacefully. People who worry that the answer may be ‘no’ fear the loss of more than just another species of animal. Elephants seem to have evolved intelligence, and possibly even consciousness. Though they may not be alone in this (similar claims are made for certain whales, some carnivores like lions and hyenas, and some birds), they are certainly part of a small group. Self-awareness is one indication of the vast capacity for thinking and intellect that exists in the elephant. They can, in fact, identify themselves in a mirror, something that is extremely rare in the animal kingdom. Another example of superior intellect is the elephant’s ability to have fun and display a sense of humour. Elephants in zoos have even been seen stealing onlookers’ caps and hiding them in playful teasing. Losing even one example of how intelligence develops would reduce the ability of biologists to understand the process of how intelligence has evolved in animals.
C
Apart from people, no species on Earth has a more complex society than elephants. Their social arrangements centre around groups of four or five females and their young that are led by a matriarch who is mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister or aunt to most of them. Though males are forced to depart their birth group when they mature, females usually remain in their entire lives. Elephant families are part of bigger ‘kinship’ groups that come together and separate at will. Moreover, each kinship group is part of what is called a clan. Clans gather in the dry season, when the resources capable of supporting elephants are limited. All clan members know each other and, since a clan will usually have 100 to 200 adult members, this means an adult female can recognise and have meaningful social relations with that many other individuals. A figure of between 100 and 200 acquaintances is similar to the number of people a human being can maintain meaningful social relationships with — a value known as Dunbar’s number. Dunbar’s number for people is about 150.
D
Being able to recall details of such large numbers of individuals means elephants require enormous mental powers. Details of how their brains work are not known, but one thing which is known is that they have big hippocampuses. These structures, one in each hemisphere of the brain, are involved in the formation of long-term recall. Compared with the size of its brain, an elephant’s hippocampuses are about 40 per cent larger than those of a human being.
E Elephants can seemingly solve problems by thinking about them in abstract terms. Experiments conducted on domesticated Asian elephants show that they are able to manipulate nearby objects, such as branches, as tools to get food which is out of reach. This is something some other species, such as great apes, can do, but which most animals find impossible. For all of these reasons then, elephants are of great scientific interest. But the focus of almost all elephant research has shifted from understanding intelligence to trying to preserve them.
F
Another, though secondary, cause of elephant decline, is changes in land use in Africa. The human inhabitants of areas around African elephant reserves have traditionally survived by moving herds of cattle from one grazing place to another. One source of conflict with elephants has been competition for pasture, as the herders' populations have grown. But, additionally, some herders have begun to settle down. Buildings and fences are appearing on land which elephants have traditionally crossed as they travel from one place to another. Elephants have places where they prefer to live and, when travelling between these, which they often do at night, they tend to follow narrow corridors. Keeping these corridors clear of development is essential to the well-being of elephants.
G
Understanding elephants' behavior also permits it to be changed in ways that help reduce direct conflict between elephants and people. One such project uses elephants' fear of bees. Bees are the only animals, apart from humans, that elephants seem truly afraid of. This is because, although a bee's sting cannot penetrate most parts of an elephant's hide, groups of bees tend to attack the eyes and the tips of the trunks, an elephant's most sensitive parts. Elephants can't protect themselves from the bees — not even by swinging their tails and flapping their ears.
H
Knowing this, scientists developed the idea of protecting farms with bee fences. The sort of fence most African farmers can afford is too weak to keep an elephant away from their crops, but a bee fence, though even weaker, will achieve this. The fence consists of pairs of poles placed at three-metre intervals, between which beehives are hung. This fence is enough to stop elephants immediately. They are so scared that half the hives can be fake, and the fence still keeps the elephants out. Bee-fenced farms suffer far fewer elephant attacks than those with conventional protection. As a bonus, the farmers earn extra income from the honey the bees produce.