The human population continues to grow, and with that, the demand for more settlement and farm areas. They, in turn, venture into territories, ought to be for elephants and other animals. Also, the elephant might eat crops grown by the farmers, and in turn, the farmers will kill the elephants to protect their plants. Human land use and climate change have degraded wildlands and broken up elephant habitats impeding migratory corridors.
It is, therefore, putting the species at risk of extinction , potentially jeopardizing the ecosystem upon which the animal depends. They are poached with poachers only going for their ivory tusks. The tusks are sold for unbelievably high amounts of money, making the unlawful business so enticing. Since the poachers have no other interest in the body of the animal, it is left there to rot.
An estimated 35, elephants are killed every year for their tusks, and the rate of growth in their population is now less than the rate of their killings.
It is a sad scene that has been witnessed in so many parts of Africa, mainly, which are dangerously bringing the animal close to extinction. The natural habitats for elephants are progressively being damaged or wiped out altogether. As a result, they are not able to freely roam as they once did to find the amounts of food they need daily. The majority of them are therefore starving to death.
As their habitats continue to be destroyed, they end up fighting for little amounts of food that are currently available to them. Although elephants can travel long distances to find food, without enough of it, they will become weak, be unable to move and die of hunger.
In many parts of the world, elephants are highly valued. However, to farmers, they represent destruction to their crops, fruits, and other items of value to them. It is, therefore, possible that the farmers kill the elephants so that they do not destroy crops. Elephants are known to take about 22 months before having a single baby. It becomes tough to increase the population if it takes almost two years before having a calf.
The males, on the other hand, are about 40 or 50 years old by the time they are mating. Everyone does not entirely understand the plight facing the elephants. As a result, their numbers will continue to go down without much intervention. Elephants are primarily hunted for their ivory tusks. Raising awareness about the same and subsequently becoming serious with ending the trade of ivory will stop the poaching.
If this is achieved, healthy elephants will be able to mate and produce strong offspring. We are also working with communities to set up alternative sustainable livelihoods to prevent the over-exploitation of natural resources.
With funding from development partners such as the European Union, U. Agency for International Development, and Arcus Foundation, AWF is supporting communities in activities climate-smart agriculture, value addition of non-timber forest products and sustainable businesses. In destination countries in Asia, we are running campaigns to ban ivory trade and sensitize people about the importance of keeping elephants alive. In addition, we raise awareness about the ineffectiveness of elephant tusks in traditional medicine.
Elephant tusks are made of dentin just like human teeth, and they do not have any curative properties. Conservation success looks like stable or increasing elephant populations with intact habitats. Conservation must also take into account the well-being of African economies and people. Learn a little more about elephants and other wildlife species. Talk about them in the spaces that you occupy.
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An Elephant Attack. Elephants in Front of Torn-Down Land. An Elephant Murdered by People. A Line of Tusks. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Humans are moving into the habitat of elephants, building roads, businesses, homes and sometimes creating big plantations, for products like palm oil. The problem is particularly pressing in South East Asia, where Conservation International estimates only five percent of irreplaceable jungle remains, but many forest restoration projects are underway.
Organisations such as the Save Elephant Foundation work with communities to restore lost habitat and educate locals about the importance of maintaining a balance between humans and wildlife. Due to their enormity, elephants can be frightening. In response, farmers and concerned citizens are shooting, poisoning, electrocuting and setting traps for elephants [16].
Elephants are afraid of bees [18]. Perhaps surrounding a pasture with beehives would discourage rampant foraging. More steps must be taken to facilitate coexistence, more comprehensive plans developed to protect both humans and elephants. For example, it could be that a better answer to the preserves now being created and marketed for ecotourism would address the need for migration by creating corridors to other reserves.
There could be ways to discourage roaming elephants from certain areas. Some governments have taken aggressive measures to catch poachers and staunch the flow of contraband as poachers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to conceal their activities as black-market prices for ivory soared.
Most recent reports show that the black-market price for ivory has fallen [9]. Although results of government measures has been positive, the support for banning ivory has not been universal. In Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana, people farm elephants on ranches for trophy hunters, arguing that ivory trade should be simply regulated, not banned.
And last spring, the US lifted its ban on importing sport-hunted trophies of elephants from certain African countries [10]. The research from on the elephant poaching hotspots mentioned earlier in this article was truly innovative and the first of its kind. Lead researcher and author, Samuel Wasser from the University of Washington , hopes that the findings will help bring about a more targeted and robust approach to halting poaching activities.
Hopefully our results will force the primary source countries to accept more responsibility for their part in this illegal trade, encourage the international community to work closely with these countries to contain the poaching, and these actions will choke the criminal networks that enable this transnational organized crime to operate.
The good news is that many initiatives are in place to help conserve elephants. World Wildlife Fund has established protected zones in countries including Mozambique, trained wildlife managers in Cambodia and Lao and worked with governments to identify illegal trade routes and shut down suppliers. Furthermore, Bloomberg Business reports that an innovative private sector initiative in Tanzania plans to use unmanned drones and other technology to monitor poacher movements, helping law enforcement officials to track them down.
It appears that elephants need a lot of fresh vegetation, water, community with each other and space. They may need to take ancestral migratory routes. Studying the behavior of herds should reveal how a particular herd moves and its optimal living conditions. Creating an environment that satisfies these conditions is the only way elephants will be able to survive the human population explosion.
A future without elephants is a worrying.
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