The Elephant Wades in on the War on Mines in Africa

The elephant never forgets. That is a common saying one may use to show elephants have incredible memories. It is a saying that is debatable, but which scientists have proved to be true by different experiment.

Two Elephants that stayed together for a few months were able to recognise each other 23 years later when they meet again.



^{Image from Pixabay: An Elephant with her calves}

Another instance, a female elephant has some urine samples placed in front of her. She was able to pick all her member's urine samples and reacted differently to urine samples of other brood members.

"Most animals that hang around in packs, such as deer, probably have no idea who the other animals in their pack are, But elephants "almost certainly know every [member] in their group.^{Scientific American}

The incredible memory of elephants serves them well as they can socialise, seek for food, plus move as a brood.

But the elephant's incredible sense of smell has some potential to help humans in war-torn African countries.

After 27 years of Civil War (1975-2002) in Angola, half a million lives were lost in a conflict regarded as the world's modern-day bloodiest wars or as United Nation (UN) put it as 'the worst war in the world."

The death toll was not only of human beings as a large number of wildlife were forced to migrate to neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Botswana.

The wanton killing of wildlife was unprecedented as hungry troops kill them for food plus the illegal horn and ivory trade made rhinos and elephants a target for these ivory merchants.

But after the conflict, the animals that fled the conflict zone starts the return journey to home. But now the place that was once the home was now barren land littered with mines.

There was about 70,000 amputees out of which 8,000, in Angola were children as a result of landmines as at 2010. The confirmed mine area is about 32,000 acres big. That was the result of the nearly three decades long war.

Elephants and other wildlife were getting killed on a daily basis by these undetonated mines which are in their millions.

There was about 70,000 amputees out of which 8,000, in Angola were children as a result of landmines as at 2010. The confirmed mine area is about 32,000 acres big. That was the result of the nearly three decades long war.

At its current rate of demining, Angola won’t be free of land mines until “beyond the year 2040,” said Constance Arvis, the deputy chief of mission at the United States Embassy in Angola. Credit Joao Silva/The New York Times

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But the elephants soon "learn" how not to step on the landmines as the elephant researcher, Dr Ian J Whyte of Kruger National Park in South Africa observed.

Dr Ian is of the opinion that the elephants found ways of evading mines via their superior sense of smell as he told National Geographic.

"Maybe they can smell the mines," Whyte said. "They move about with their trunks right on the ground, and it could be that they pick up the scent in this way. ^{National Geographic}

But some other groups of researchers led by Ashadee Kay Miller a PhD Candidate, School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, wanted to confirm how accurate this assertion was.

They started by verifying if the elephants could detect the smell of the major constituent of a land mine; Trinitrotoluene (TNT) with chemical formular (C₇H₅N₃O₆)

This chemical constituent has a low volatility property. That means its tendency to vaporise is low which makes it difficult to be perceived by both man and animals. But animals with high olfactory perception have been known to perceive TNT. Example include Gambian giant rats, dogs and bees.

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It is in the genes

Being able to perceive much better than others in animals is as a result of genes. This gene contributes to the size and number of olfactory receptors that determines if an animal could perceive more or less.

The African elephants have twice the number of olfactory perception genes than the dogs according to this report. The olfactory receptors (ORs) in African elephant is about 2000 functional gene ORs clusters.

This beats rat's own of 1493 which is higher than dog's own at 1094 with humans coming a distant third at between 650-950 olfactory receptor gene cluster. See more details here.

That invariably makes elephant the champion sniffers of our animal kingdom.

The researchers had to put this to test by soaking papers in samples of bleach, petroleum, tea, acetone, TNT and blanks (plain papers) and placing them 6m apart.

The trained elephants raised their legs when they smell a paper soaked in TNT. Watch a video of this test with elephant detecting the TNT-soaked paper placed in buckets here.

The elephant had an impressive performance and was able to show a 5% more efficiency in detecting TNT compared to the dog.

The Elephant's Benefit to Mine Detection

Due to its size, elephants are not going to act as a replacement for other methods of demining operations ongoing.

But it could act as backup and help save lives by checking samples flown in by mine-sensing drones.

Since elephants have superior sniffing ability, they could be used in the biomedical setting such as dogs that are used to check for early detection of diseases such as in cancer, epilepsy, harmful microbes etc.

A dog can detect the smell of a drop of blood in an Olympic size swimming pool. That is how sensitive dogs are to smell. Humans can smell cancer through their own breath in later stages, so it makes sense that dogs can smell cancer in humans at stage zero. Stage zero cancer detection is an astonishing miracle, and to date, has only been accomplished by canine.^Source.

Also, it lives longer than a dog; it could live to be 60. It would have a long-term use once trained to detect things like TNT, diseases, etc.

Reference

• Elephants Never Forget
• Angola:The Worst War
• Elephants Learn to Avoid Mines
• Olfactory Receptors Repertoires of Dogs and Rats
• Dogs Detect Cancer

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