African Elephants Endangerment

About:

African Elephants, Latin name loxodonta africana, are one of the most majestic animals on the planet. They are some of the largest mammals on earth, reaching up to 11 feet, and roam all over Africa. There are two different species of African Elephants, the savanna elephants and bush elephants. Elephants had once been all over the continent, but now, due to climate change, the giant tusked animals are reduced to only a couple hundred thousand in the wild.

Elephants are commonly known for their size and tusks, but they are also one of the most intelligent animals. Many various African cultures have respect for elephants, and the animals have ties in their culture. More than just this, elephants are essential for the environment because they are keystone species. They are able to provide water by digging with their tusks, help with seed dispersal by creating vegetation gaps, help keep the plains open by feeding on vegetation, and use their dung to help fertilize. The environments of Africa are dependent on elephants, even if many people are not aware of this.

Endangerment:

Fortunately, elephants are not a particularly specialist species. They are able to live in various habitats, eat many foods, and are able to adapt to climates. Because of this, they are not necessarily completely vulnerable to climate change. However, because of their dwindling numbers, they are low in genetic diversity and fitness. They also need to be sustained by large amounts of water. They dig for the water, but are also dependent on rainfall for reproduction. As climate change increases, it is more difficult for elephants to acquire the water that is needed for their survival. With the addition of how prominent poaching is, elephant populations have been dwindling at high rates in the past few years. Elephants were previously considered vulnerable by the IUCN, but it was announced in March of 2021 that the African forest elephant is now critically endangered, and the African savanna elephant is endangered.

In the future, it is predicted that climate change will continue to make the habitat of elephants hotter and drier. These unusual heats will make the animals more sensitive to heat, be more prone to disease, lower their genetic diversity, and make it difficult for them to regenerate.

Elephant Populations and Ranges

It was last estimated in 2016 by the IUCN African Elephant Status Report that the population of African elephants is now around 415,000 elephants. Savanna elephants can be found in sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa, while forest elephants are found in Central and West Africa, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Uganda. While this may seem like an impressive population and range, it is important to remember that there used to be more than 10 million of these animals from as early as 1930. They had once roamed all over the continent of Africa. The population decrease had first started primarily from ivory poaching, but now, elephants die from a myriad of anthropogenic reasons, with a growing number being due to climate change.

How Can You Help?

There are a variety of programs and organizations that are working towards protecting elephants. One such organization is Save the Elephants. Not only do they conduct research into the behavior of elephants and their ecology, they also do research in the killing of elephants and monitoring the elephants. All of this is essential because it is difficult to take action when there is little available knowledge. They started the Elephant Crisis Fund, which helps work with various other people, like local communities, to defend the animals from being killed or taken away illegally. Most importantly, they also help to raise awareness in people about the importance of elephants.

Of course, this isn’t enough. There are other organizations, such as the WWF, that are also helping to actively protect the elephants and raise awareness, but the problem is much bigger than that.

One of the most important things to address while moving forwards towards helping elephant populations is addressing how to secure fresh water for the animals. This is a pressing problem because it is not something that can simply be fixed; it’s a problem that is only going to continue getting worse because of climate change. The earth is drying up, which will make the elephants struggle to dig for water. There is also literal change in the climate, where the rainfall will continue to decrease in the coming years.

Overall, if you want to help elephants, you must decrease your carbon footprint. The amount of carbon footprint that each of us take up contributes towards climate change, and regardless of how big or small of a difference it may make to us, in the long run, it does make a difference in the environment. There are obvious things, like saving energy at home, opting to take transport that isn’t a car, and eating less meat. There are various organizations that you can donate to; the links below provide a numerous amount of organizations that are working towards helping elephants specifically. To help elephant populations, it is also important that you don’t purchase ivory, as this very actively harms the populations of the animals.

Recovery Plan

The IUCN created the African Elephant Action Plan in 2010. It is owned and managed by the African elephant range States. It merely details what must be put into place to help protect the African Elephants.

There are eight objectives that are pointed out to be the most important for ensuring the long-term survival of the animals.

The first objective is to reduce the illegal killing and illegal trade of elephants and elephant products. This comes from how many elephants are killed for their previous ivory tusks. To help this reduction, there must be more law enforcement agencies that are able to prevent poachers and policies created that support elephant management.

The second objective is to maintain elephant habitats. This goes without saying; if the elephants have nowhere to live, then they obviously cannot survive. For this, there must be more effort made to ensure connectivity between elephant ranges, management across borders, and maintenance of the habitat.

The third objective is to reduce human-elephant conflict. Seeing as how the largest reason for the reduction of elephant populations is anthropogenic, it is essential that humans stop bothering the poor animals. This can happen from resource competition. The strategies that are detailed to help this are to apply management approaches that address the conflict and to establish participatory processes for mitigation. Specifically, more wildlife officers and communities can be equipped. More appropriate land use planning can be adopted. Plans can be developed to manage the conflicts in different scenarios.

The fourth objective is to increase awareness on elephant conservation and management. To do this, stakeholders especially must have more awareness. There should also be an increase in the use of indigenous knowledge of elephants and a push for sharing information on conservation for the animals.

The fifth objective is to strengthen the knowledge of range states on management as well. Since the States are in charge of managing this action plan, it truly is important that they understand what they are doing. They must continue monitoring the populations of the elephants and have effective techniques in acquiring information for the States.

The sixth objective is to ensure that the States cooperate and understand each other. When the states are on the same page, it is much easier for the plan to take place smoothly. For this, there must be cross-sectoral, cross-border, regional, and continental interactions that occur concerning how to manage elephants. There must also be frameworks used to promote cooperation among the States.

The seventh objective is to improve cooperation with local communities. This objective may seem unusual because it does not seem to have anything to do with elephants. However, because many local communities interact with elephants on a daily basis, share and compete with elephants for resources, and suffer if elephants suffer, it is essential that these communities are addressed as well. One way to do this is to create sustainable plans that will benefit these communities that also reduce the cost of living with elephants.

Finally, the eighth objective is to have an action plan that is implemented efficiently. This is the overarching objective for the recovery plan, and what drives the other objectives.

References

African Elephant Action Plan. IUCN. (2017, February 14). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.iucn.org/ssc-groups/mammals/african-elephant-specialist-group/strategies-management-plans/african-elephant-action-plan.

African Elephants and Their Climate Vulnerability. African Climate Reality Project. (2018, March 2). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://climatereality.co.za/world-wildlife-day-climate-change-threatens-african-elephants/.

Maisels, F., Balfour, D., Gobush, K., Wittemyer, G., Taylor, R., & Edwards, C. (2020, November 13). African Forest Elephant. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/181007989/204404464.

Maisels, F., Balfour, D., Gobush, K., Wittemyer, G., Taylor, R., & Edwards, C. (2020, November 13). African Savanna Elephant. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/181008073/204401095.

What We Do. Save the Elephants. (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.savetheelephants.org/what-we-do/.

Why Are Elephants Important? Save the Elephants. (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.savetheelephants.org/about-elephants-2-3-2/importance-of-elephants/.

World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). African elephant facts. WWF. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/african-elephant.

World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). African elephants and climate change overview. WWF. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/african-elephants-and-climate-change--3.

World Wildlife Fund. (n.d.). The status of African elephants. WWF. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/winter-2018/articles/the-status-of-african-elephants.

WorldAtlas. (2021, February 8). Where do elephants live? WorldAtlas. Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/where-do-elephants-live.html.

Images

African elephant range map. Image credit: Bamse, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons