Elephants! 12 Things You Didn’t Know, Plus Photo Gallery

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Elephant fact 12: Elephants’ closest known relatives are dugongs and manatees, hyraxes, and aardvarks.

Is there room for wild elephants in a modern world?

Unsustainable human population growth and the resulting habitat loss, along with human-elephant conflict, has made it nearly impossible for elephants to survive outside of protected areas. Increased demand for ivory – and the growing purchasing power of those who desire ivory – is now a revived threat to these majestic, intelligent creatures.

• Illegal elephant and ivory trafficking remains rampant in parts of southeast Asia. See: Illegal Trade in Endangered Elephants Thriving Under Thai Loopholes
• Poaching of elephants for ivory has recently risen to an alarming level – and continues to increase – to meet insatiable demands of the growing number of wealthy Chinese, who view ivory as a “must-have” status symbol. See Financial Times’ Shopping Habits of China’s ‘Suddenly Wealthy’
• Africa is currently witnessing an alarming increase in elephant poaching. Of particular concern is Kenya, where the onslaught of Chinese construction workers has been linked to the widespread killing of elephants (with tusks hacked out) near these massive infrastructure projects. See Kenya Fears Link Between Elephant Killings and Chinese Construction Projects – and the follow up China Denies Links to Elephant Poaching in Kenya

How to help elephants

At the turn of the 20th century, there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today, there are an estimated 450,000 – 700,000 African elephants and between 35,000 – 40,000 wild Asian elephants.

To learn more about how you can help protect elephants, check out:

• Save the Elephants
• The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
• Wildlife Direct

Sources:

• African Wildlife Foundation
• Elephant Voices
• Smithsonian National Zoo
• New Scientist
• IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
• Nature

Images: istock.com, unless otherwise noted.