Scots slaughtered countless elephants: a new study aims to save them

The thick musk of elephant herds hung in the air, signalling an opportunity for big game hunters like them for fortune and adventure.

Bell, so cold-blooded in his precision that he could drop a bull elephant with a single well-placed shot to the brain, slew more than a thousand of the giants in his time, almost all of them towering bulls.

Elephant hunter W.D.M. Bell - Karamojo Bell - poses for his pilot's licence, 1915 (Image: Public Domain)

A master of the ‘brain shot’, he was so skilled that he was said to have been able to despatch several within seconds of each other, each falling lifeless to the ground with a shuddering ‘thud’ before the surrounding herd even had time to take flight.

Fellow Scot Sutherland, whose shooting skills earned him the moniker ‘the world’s greatest elephant hunter’, walked the same bloody path, writing vividly in his hunting memoirs of picking off spectacular specimens from vast herds that seemed limitless in number.

Armed with his heavy calibre rifle, he managed to whittle them down by around 1,600 beasts, some with tusks weighing over 200lbs.

But they were just two of several Scottish big game hunters whose quest for ivory, trophies and fame in the early 20th century helped drain elephant numbers across Africa.

James H. Sutherland became known as the 'world's greatest elephant hunter' (Image: Public Domain) Likewise, rifle-toting British colonialists were also taking aim across swathes of India and Asia, cutting down countless elephants at an astonishing rate.

But where once the crack of Scots’ rifles spelled a bloody death for their prey, there is now a different Scottish engagement with the largest land animals.

At the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland’s WildGenes lab, researchers are working with the Royal University of Phnom Penh’s Conservation Genetics laboratory and other partners in Cambodia to use genetic analysis to monitor the country’s wild Asian elephant populations.

Their study, which uses elephant dung to extract DNA, has been described as ‘ground-breaking’, with potential to be exported to other locations across Asia and Africa where unveiling the true make up of surviving elephants may become crucial to their futures.

Until now, a major problem facing conservationists eager to protect remaining numbers of elephants across Asia and Africa has been trying to properly survey numbers.

Apart from risks posed by trying to work close to herds of the world’s largest land animal, are issues of funding, finding trained teams to carry out the task, and navigating huge areas that can be remote, in thick forest or vast savanna, sometimes plagued by civil unrest.

A new study involving Edinburgh researchers has brought fresh hope for Cambodian Asian elephant populations (Image: Fauna and Flora International)

In Cambodia, where hunting for ivory and elephant parts has decimated wild elephant numbers, only an estimated 400 to 600 individuals are believed to remain in a handful of areas.

Although there has been a decline in elephant poaching in the country, there are fears the remaining herds may not have the diversity of gene pool needed to keep the population healthy.

Having extracted DNA from elephant dung, researchers were able to pinpoint individual animals, determine their sex, estimate population size and establish the overall genetic diversity of the population - critical for long-term viability.

Their work has revealed a larger and more robust population than previously thought - raising hopes the endangered species could slowly recover if properly protected.

The study, conducted by nature conservation charity Fauna & Flora and published in PeerJ, is only the second published study in Cambodia to use genetics to estimate wildlife population sizes, and the first to assess the genetic diversity of elephants in the country.

It is also the first research in Cambodia that combines population size, genetic diversity, and habitat suitability assessments.

The work is being seen as a potential blueprint for similar assessments elsewhere, opening the door to similar studies to be carried out on dwindling elephant populations in other countries.

Dr Alex Ball, WildGenes Conservation Manager for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: "Having a high level of genetic diversity within a population is fundamental to its long-term future, so we were very pleasantly surprised by the results of the project.

“It’s been a team effort by partners from Cambodia and Scotland.

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​“We now hope to expand this methodology across Cambodia and beyond, helping to build a clearer picture of Asian elephant numbers, which will inform how best we can work to help reverse the decline of these spectacular animals."

The study, supported by USAID funds and Britain's People's Postcode Lottery, was conducted in collaboration with the Cambodian Environment Ministry. The genetic testing was done at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, with technical support provided by the Edinburgh-based Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

Seanghun Meas, Conservation Genetics Laboratory Manager, Department of Biology, Royal University of Phnom Penh, said: “As technology advances, conservation genetics continues to be a powerful tool in saving endangered species.

“This vital information will significantly enhance the effectiveness of the conservation program of this animal species and their habitats as well as providing the meaningful knowledge sharing among researchers, students, faculty.”

A study involving Edinburgh researchers has brought fresh hope for elephant populations (Image: Fauna and Flora International)

The study's findings point to the potential of a particular area of Cambodia known as the Prey Lang Extended Landscape to become a national stronghold for Asian elephants.

Pablo Sinovas, Country Director, Fauna & Flora Cambodia Programme, says the study offers “a rare and valuable opportunity for recovery”.

He adds: “As wildlife across the globe is increasingly confined to shrinking and degraded habitats, the management of small, fragmented populations is becoming ever more critical.

“Despite its small size, this population retains high levels of genetic diversity, an essential foundation for long-term survival.

“Our assessment provides a strong scientific basis for targeted conservation action, and we hope it can also serve as a model to guide similar efforts for large mammals facing comparable challenges worldwide.”

The study is part of a wider movement to offer fresh protection to Asian elephants in Cambodia, where there is a culture of wild meat consumption and high levels of hunting.

A decade-long $40 million Asian Elephant Conservation Programme intended to stabilise and grow the species was launched in 2020.

While last month, a gathering in Cambodia of 13 Asian elephant range countries led to a declaration for Asian elephant conservation and framework for conservation.

Overall, the three species of wild elephant – African savanna, African Forest and Asian - are estimated to have decreased in number by 90% in the last century.

Around 476,000 elephants are thought to remain in the wild.

But not every country is eager to boost elephant numbers; and one in particular is looking back to the glory days of the likes of gun-totting professional trophy hunters like Edinburgh-born Karamojo Bell and former spy Sutherland.

Botswana has around 130,000 elephants – the largest population in Africa and equating to one for every 15 of its people in some areas. The thriving herds are said to have destroyed properties, eaten crops and terrorised locals.

To ease pressure, in recent years Botswana has gifted thousands of elephants to neighbouring Angola and offered more to other countries.

And in response to threats from some European countries, including the UK, to impose harsher import caps on trophies from hunting animals, Botswanan president Mokgweetsi Masisi has previously suggested delivering 20,000 of their unwanted elephants to Germany, and 10,000 to Hyde Park in London.

Botswana, which lifted its ban on elephant hunting in 2019, claims hunting is necessary to control population and empower rural communities.

Along with neighbours Zimbabwe and Namibia, Botswana has also argued that it should be allowed to sell their stockpiles of ivory so it can earn money from its huge numbers of elephants.

Despite conservation efforts and international opposition to wildlife trophy imports, last week the country confirmed its hunting revenues had nearly doubled in 2024, earning $4 million—up from $2.7 million in 2023.

The rise is largely due to elephant hunting licenses, with funds said to be destined to support conservation and community projects in wildlife regions.

Conservation groups, however, warn the rise in elephant hunting can change herds’ behaviour and spark further human-wildlife conflict.

The issue has raised the delicate conflict between conservation and killing for sport; not an issue for the trigger-happy hunters of the early 20th century for whom the thrill of the kill was as intoxicating as the fame and fortune it brought.

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Demand for ivory was high, but the thrill of the sport and the chance to become famous for their daring exploits lured dozens of European and American big game hunters to Africa and Asian countries in search of trophies.

Karamojo Bell earned worldwide fame for his use of smaller calibre weapons and technique of shooting elephants from diagonally behind the target, known as the 'Bell Shot'.

Sutherland, whose hunting grounds spanned Tanzania, Uganda, and then the Belgian Congo and French Congo – was already a remarkable character who had won both the Iron Cross for fighting with German colonial forces in East Africa in 1906, was severely wounded and paralysed by a German sniper in 1915 and whose role as a First World War spy earned him the Légion d’Honneur.

US President Theodore Roosevelt stands over a dead elephant shot during an African hunt (Image: Public Domain)

His exploits as a professional elephant hunter were packed with daring tales of tracking and near misses which he documented in his memoir, The Adventures Of An Elephant Hunter.

Vividly describing his most extreme hunts, he wrote of the tension, physical exertion, excitement and near death experiences that came with hunting the world’s largest land animals.

One hunt in Tanzania involving four huge elephants was particularly eventful and - for Sutherland if not his prey – successful.

“For four interminable hours we followed them across a terrible country, one expanse of dense thicket, long elephant grass and thorny scrub,” he wrote, describing the grass towering at up to 16 feet high, narrowing their view, in stifling heat and with raging thirst.

Blighted by sunstroke, and fuelled by snuff, he told of being “keenly alive to the possibility that one of the herd might double back to us with a rush,” before notching up his first kill of the outing.

It was, he wroten: “An enormous bull with singularly long tusks, standing as if awaiting his pursuers.

“Old Dame Fortune surely favoured us, for when we were about 30 yards from the giant, he suddenly turned and, with his enormous ears outspread at right angles to his head, steadily gazed in our direction.

“A bullet from my ‘577 between his eyes, penetrated his brain, instantly dropping him.”

Sutherland's shooting spree was only just beginning. 

“As the other three, probably curious to know what had befallen their comrade, rushed up to where he lay, I managed to secure a second with a beautiful shot just a little in front of the earhole," he continues. 

“One of the remaining two, scared by the fusillade, took refuge in flight; the other, apparently mystified by the behaviour of his companions, stood hesitant.”

Sutherland seized his second rifle. “I placed a bullet in his heart and another in the vertebrae of the neck, bringing him down with a crash beside his fellows.”

James. H Sutherland poses with one of four elephants shot during a hunt documented in his book The Adventures Of An Elephant Hunter. (Image: Public domain)

A fourth, he wrote, infuriated by events, charged. As Sutherland and his guide scrambled to avoid being trampled, it took half a dozen bullets from his rifle before, blood streaming from its wounds and rampaging, the great creature blindly smashed into a tree and, stricken on the ground, was finally dispatched.

Sutherland and his tracker later dined on elephant heart and counted their trophies: one elephant’s tusks measured 6ft and each weighed over 106lbs.

“Another glorious day's sport over!,” he wrote.