Despite the slightly encouraging numbers released by the UN in , showing the number of elephants being poached for ivory falling over the last four years, elephants are still being barbarically killed at the hand of poachers at a faster rate than they are being born. Heartbreakingly, 35, — 50, are slaughtered annually for their ivory tusks — which means population levels are falling and heading for extinction.
With optimistic estimates putting the elephant population figure at under half a million , at the rate they are being killed, elephants will be extinct in twenty short years.
The notion that we will lose these complex, empathetic and intelligent majestic animals if something is not done, is not only devastating for emotional reasons, it will also have an extremely detrimental effect on the environment.
The impressive ecological impact of the elephant touches the environment in a plethora of manners, from spreading seeds far and wide by their eating habits to even the biodiversity created in their giant footprints alone.
Due to their great size, appetite, and migratory patterns, elephants are the key species that disperse more seeds further than any other animal.
This is especially important in tropical forests where animals are responsible for up to 95 percent of seed dispersion over wind or water. As elephant numbers decrease, so do the trees. Decreasing or completely losing the tree species that rely on elephants not only is an issue for the balance of our flora, it also affects the herbivores that feed and live in these trees such as bats, birds, insects, and other mammals.
For example, chimpanzees and bonobos in certain forest areas rely on the fruit of one of the elephant-dependent trees, Irvingia gabonensis , for months at a time. Further, as the largest animals in Africa and Asia, elephants create watering holes that whole communities of species use. By digging deep wells in dry river beds, they maintain open grasslands in the African Savannah and fertilize soil with their mammoth amount of nutrient-rich manure.
Weighing more than 12, pounds means they make deep footprints as they walk across the land, which are so significant in size that they become microhabitats themselves. As they fill with water they become alive with at least 61 different macroinvertebrate species from nine different orders making their homes in and around the footprints, as discussed in the recently published paper in the African Journal of Ecology.
This is significantly less than the 1. Without elephants there will be major habitat changes, with negative effects on the many species that depend on the lost habitat.
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 ecosystems; 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 now, and in the future.
Elephants cannot be manufactured. Jane Goodall Elephants and humans share a long history throughout our civilization. Because without elephants, just what kind of world would it be? Why Care? Spread the word. Latest news. From Twitter Tweets by wrldelephantday. World Elephant Day. An absence of elephants from a forest ecosystem therefore would upset the balance so severely that many tree species would die out entirely.
In the dry months, elephants dig holes in riverbeds to access water, which is then made available to all other water-dependent species. In forests, where minerals are limited, they dig for salt sources and bring them to the surface, creating open patches or bais that serve as resources for a wide range of animals.
In short, if elephants were completely eliminated or prevented from roaming freely within a broad ecosystem, these ecosystems will cease to flourish. They will become less diverse and, in some places, will collapse to over-simplified impoverishment.
For many humans now living in towns and cities, the wild environment is often something one watches on television, and consequently generates little concern. However, try as we may to remain apathetic, without the services provided by the natural environment, including clear and reliable water supplies, carbon storage, and the very oxygen we breathe, it is quite conceivable that we humans will be joining other species in going extinct.
Biodiversity is a complex, interactive, global system of flowing energy and nutrients, both a product and a creator of natural resources. From the emergence of life on earth some 3. Elephants, the great grey shapers of forests and savannas, maintain biodiversity. Without them, a host of other species, including humans, may be lost as well.
Keith Lindsay The question of elephants going extinct is an increasing possibility.
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