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Wildlife Contraception
A lone elephant hurries toward a stand of trees as the whoop-whoop of a helicopter looms overhead. The helicopter swings within a few yards of the elephant, and she breaks into a run—but not soon enough. A rifle shot rings out, and a splash of red erupts onto her thigh. She’s been hit. But she doesn’t stumble and fall. Instead, she continues running because those rifle shots aren’t bullets: they’re darts containing purified pig proteins plus a bit of dye to mark the hit. The goal here at Makalali Reserve in South Africa isn’t to kill these animals but rather to contracept them: to trick their immune systems into preventing pregnancy in order to control populations. It’s the newest approach to a quintessentially modern problem—too many elephants roaming South Africa’s wild reserves, stripping leaves from trees and in some spots mowing the grass until it resembles a putting green. And it isn’t just elephants; on other continents, too many mallards, horses, deer, and kangaroos in the wrong places pose similar problems.
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