How many elephants remain in Africa? For a variety of environmental reasons, monitoring the population of elephants in Africa is extremely important. When attempting to estimate the size of an elephant population in a certain area, a researcher must make several decisions. Should the count be conducted from the air or from the ground? Should the elephants in the entire area be counted or only those in a representative area? Should only the elephants themselves be counted, or should signs of their presence—such as dung, tracks, and feeding evidence—be considered as well? Over the past four decades, the approaches used to count elephants have become more statistically refined. This twopart article, to be continued in next month's issue, will explore the mathematics of some of the methods used to count elephants and will present related activities for the mathematics classroom. In this part, we will provide a brief but pertinent history of the African elephant and then present two different methods of counting elephants. This activity may be used as an entire unit or as an application of a particular concept and may be incorporated into several courses. Algebra and geometry students will be able to handle the necessary mathematics. Although this activity informally exposes students to several statistical concepts, a sophisticated understanding of statistics is not required to complete the first two scenarios. The mathematics for the third scenario is more advanced, however; thus, it could be used in higher-level classes such as statistics and calculus. The tasks involved in all three scenarios encourage students to make connections between mathematics and other disciplines and touch on the various implications of mathematical decisions.
Aerial Survey Intensity as a Determinant of Estimates of African Elephant Population Sizes and Trends