The Endangered Giants: Elephants

I was surprised to see that I never made an animal post about elephants. Didn’t even have them on my list. Maybe I did it and can’t find it, but you would think they would be early in my posting of endangered animals. After all, most people know about elephants and how they are endangered.

The World Wildlife Organization has a great site about them. I’ll paraphrase since I don’t think I have to explain much.

There are two species:

The African Elephant is the bigger one with the subspecies of the Savanna Elephant and Forest Elephant. The Savanna one is the most common subspecies and what you probably think of first. They live on the plains and is the largest of the elephants. The Forest subspecies is more elusive since they live in rainforests. Differences between the two include ear size, tusk size, and family size. For example, Savanna Elephants usually have family units of 10 females while Forest Elephants have family units of 20 individuals.
The Asian Elephant is smaller and has four subspecies. The Indian Elephant is probably the most commonly thought of one. The Sumatran Elephant is another and they both have similar information. The Sri Lankan Elephant is highly endangered and there is even a death penalty if you kill one. Finally, the Bornean Elephant is the smallest of the species and is also called the Borneo Pygmy Elephant since it gets to only 8.2-9.8 feet tall.

Elephants are highly endangered for a variety of reasons. The biggest one is poaching because there is a market for their tusks. This is similar to rhino’s and their horns. In 1989, ivory trading was made illegal, which helped to some extent. Yet, the problem got bad once more in 2010 when there people in Asian countries renewed their interest in elephant ivory. The US and UK became problem areas as well. On some positive news, the biggest market for elephant ivory was China, who banned the trading of it at the start of 2018. This was a big victory.

Of course, there are other threats. Habit loss is one that leads to encounters between people and elephants. This causes conflicts, especially if an elephant starts eating crops or damaging property. Sometimes, a person may be killed by an elephant because these are wild animals. The response from people can end up being a retaliatory killing of the elephant. This stems from anger over losing a loved one and the fear that the animal will take more lives. Erecting barriers to keep the elephants in the wild is one way to help, but more importantly is educating locals about their neighbors.

So, let’s get to the pictures. All found with Google Image Search. Starting with the 2 African subspecies and then the 4 Asian subspecies.

Forest Elephant

Savanna Elephant

Bornean Pygmy Elephant

Indian Elephant

Sri Lankan Elephant

Sumatran Elephant

Gotta have some videos:

About Charles Yallowitz

Charles E. Yallowitz was born, raised, and educated in New York. Then he spent a few years in Florida, realized his fear of alligators, and moved back to the Empire State. When he isn't working hard on his epic fantasy stories, Charles can be found cooking or going on whatever adventure his son has planned for the day. 'Legends of Windemere' is his first series, but it certainly won't be his last.

View all posts by Charles Yallowitz →