A growing number of African elephants are being born without tusks in some parts of Africa, because poachers have consistently targeted their species for decades to remove its tusks and meet the demand for ivory in Asia, primarily China.

In Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park ,  a third of the youngest female elephants, and half of the oldest, do not have tusks.

In some areas of Africa, 98 percent of female elephants are tuskless, compared to 2% to 6% of elephants born without tusks in the past, the researchers explained.

Almost a third of the elephants in Africa have been illegally killed by poachers in the last decade to meet the demand for ivory in Asia, where there is still a booming ivory trade, mainly in China.

Approximately 144,000 elephants were killed between 2007 and 2014, leaving the species in danger of extinction in some areas.

African elephants are being born without tusks due to poaching

The researchers also warn that surviving elephants could do so without tusks, like their Asian cousins.

Joyce Poole, director of Elephant Voices  , has followed the evolution of the species for more than 30 years. She told The Times that she had seen a direct correlation between the intensity of poaching and the percentage of females born without fangs in some of the herds she monitored.

In Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, 90 percent of elephants were slaughtered between 1977 and 1992, during the country’s civil war.

Dr. Poole said that because poachers were targeting animals with tusks, nearly half of the females over 35 years of age had lost them, and although poaching is now under control and the population is he is recovering well, they pass the defenseless gene to his daughters.

30 percent of female elephants born since the end of the war also have no tusks.

“Females that are fangless are more likely to have fanged-less offspring.”

In 2008, scientists found that even among the elephants that were left with tusks, the tusks were smaller than in elephants a century earlier, about half their previous size.

Elephants need their tusks to survive

Although the lack of tusks can protect elephants from poaching, it is not ideal.

Without fangs females can be fine as long as they stick to the herd. As elephants use their tusks to dig water wells, eat, dig up trees, branches and move them around, lift objects, defend themselves and for sexual display, according to the BBC.

In general, it would not be advantageous to be born without fangs.

The BBC reports:

“Conservationists say that an elephant without tusks is a crippled elephant.”