Revered as the elephant god, used in labour-intensive forest exploitations and tourist entertainment sites, or still roaming free in isolated pockets of wilderness, Asian elephants are an essential part of South Asia’s cultures. Only bulls among Asian elephants may grow huge tusks, while cows have small incisor teeth called tushes. As a combined result of systematically catching bulls from the wild and isolating them in captivity, trophy hunting, and heavy poaching for ivory, the majority of the bulls in most of the Asian elephant populations are now tuskless (called maknas) or have very small tusks. Man-made reverse selection eliminated elephants with tusks-to-the-ground throughout Asia.
The longest tusks ever recorded on Asian elephants were around 3m and the heaviest reached some 160 pounds (73 kg) each.
Today only around a dozen great Asian tuskers still join the ranks of Colonel Hathi's jungle patrols, and most of them are captive.
This sub-project is part of my flagship project 'The World As It Once Was', which aims at identifying, photographing and saving the individuals with the most formidable genes left in the glorious giants of today.
Some of these pictures are already published by National Geographic and Wild Planet.
amateur category
Asia's Last Supertuskers (Series)
DESCRIPTION
AUTHOR
My work has been published by National Geographic, BBC Earth, GEO, Wild Planet Photo Magazine, Africa Geographic and Pachyderm, among others. Previously a nominee in FAPA and a finalist in Wildlife Comedy Photography Awards and in the Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year; won the grand prize in a national photo contest.
My flagship photographic project is called The World As It Once Was and is focused on the last "trophy" individuals within iconic wildlife species. This project is not about whether trophy hunting benefits or not conservation in general. It is also not about whether trophy hunting is moral or not. These are issue I leave aside for another day. This story is about one clear, unfortunate consequence of trophy hunting: the elimination of the individuals with the best genes from iconic wildlife species: in other words, the loss of intra-species biodiversity. This story is about bringing together the results of 30-40 years of scientific research and superb imagery. It is about showing these animals alive, as magnificent as they are. The question I have asked myself each time was: if a statue would have to be raised to a species, how would that look like?
My flagship photographic project is called The World As It Once Was and is focused on the last "trophy" individuals within iconic wildlife species. This project is not about whether trophy hunting benefits or not conservation in general. It is also not about whether trophy hunting is moral or not. These are issue I leave aside for another day. This story is about one clear, unfortunate consequence of trophy hunting: the elimination of the individuals with the best genes from iconic wildlife species: in other words, the loss of intra-species biodiversity. This story is about bringing together the results of 30-40 years of scientific research and superb imagery. It is about showing these animals alive, as magnificent as they are. The question I have asked myself each time was: if a statue would have to be raised to a species, how would that look like?
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