An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts. In 1980, there were over 1,000,000 African elephants; today, there are less than 400,000. An insatiable lust for ivory products in Asian markets has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of African elephants since 2011, making it the worst year on record for elephant poaching in Africa. Poaching rates continue to rise, threatening the future of African elephants across the continent. Bull elephants with big tusks are the main targets and their numbers have been diminished to less than half of the females. Female African elephants also have tusks and are also killed, which has a terrible effect on the stability of elephant societies, leaving an increasing number of orphaned baby elephants.
2011 saw the highest number of illegal ivory seizures recorded in the last 23 years”
The Asian elephant, whose habitat ranges over 14 countries across Asia, is an endangered species and only an estimated 43,000 remain worldwide. Wild Asian elephants suffer severe habitat loss in some of the most densely human-populated regions on the planet. Their traditional territories and migration routes have been fragmented by development forcing the elephants into deadly confrontations with humans where neither species wins. Asian elephants are also poached for their ivory tusks, meat and body parts while baby elephants are captured from the wild and sold into the tourism industry. Worldwide, thousands of Asian elephants are trained, traded and used for entertainment in tourist parks and circuses and also for illegal logging activities. These captive elephants are often mistreated, abused and confined to sub-standard facilities without adequate veterinarian care.
Elephants and humans share a long history throughout our civilization. The expanse of the African habitat and the enormous size and aggressive posture of the African elephant has allowed it to resist captivity. But the Asian elephant has lived alongside humans for over 4,000 years and is imbued with reverence, tradition and spirituality across many cultures. In Thailand, the elephant is a national icon: it has a national holiday designated in its honor and elephants can receive a Royal title from the King.
Yet while elephants have lived alongside humans for so long, there is still much we don’t know about them. With the largest brain of any land animal, they are smart, sentient, social, and empathetic, qualities we strive for ourselves. We share so many characteristics with elephants that they may well be more like us than any other animal. But we are risking their future and in the process damaging the integral structure of habitat for biodiversity throughout Asia and Africa.
Elephants are a keystone species. It means they create and maintain the ecosystems in which they live and make it possible for a myriad of plant and animal species to live in those environments as well. The loss of elephants gravely affects many species that depend on elephant-maintained ecosystems and causes major habitat chaos and a weakening to the structure and diversity of nature itself. To lose the elephant is to lose an environmental caretaker and an animal from which we have much to learn.
Without elephants there will be major habitat changes with negative effects on the many species that depend on the lost habitat.” – Samuel Wasser ,University of Washington
We can save elephants by implementing stronger protection policies for wild elephants at both local and international levels of government; stronger enforcement and legislative measures against the poaching and illegal trade of ivory; better management of natural elephant habitats; better education about the vital role of the elephant in the ecosystem; more viable alternative economic opportunities for those whose livelihoods depend on elephants; improved treatment for captive elephants; and where appropriate, reintroduction of captive elephants into protected sanctuaries that allow a natural replenishing of endangered populations. These are just some of the goals that numerous elephant conservation organizations are focusing on around the world to prevent the extinction of wild elephants and the destruction of their habitat, and to improve the quality of life for those elephants in captivity.
Elephants are running out of space and time. Before we know it they will be gone — unless we collectively stop the senseless poaching and consumer demand for ivory, and allocate protected natural habitat in countries where elephants and other wildlife can thrive again.
Because without elephants, just what kind of world would it be?
