Blog Post Image: Africa’s poison ‘apple’ provides common ground for saving elephants, raising livestock

The Sodom apple has overrun vast swaths of East African savanna and pastureland. In this photo from Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, the Sodom apple is the tall bushy plant. Although the plant is toxic to grazing animals such as sheep and cattle, “browsers” such as elephants and impalas are unaffected by the plant’s poison. Just as the governments of nations such as Kenya prepare to pour millions into eradicating the plant, the Princeton findings present a method for controlling the Sodom apple that is cost-effective for humans and beneficial for the survival of African elephants. (Photo by Tyler Coverdale, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)