World Elephant Day on 12 August

World Elephant Day is on 12 August. It has been designated World Elephant Day as part of efforts to raise awareness of the alarming decline of the world’s elephant populations.

Disclosure: Some of the links below and banners are affiliate links. That means, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

The number of African elephants has plummeted from around five million in 1900 to approximately 450,000. From 1989 to 2017, the world elephant population dropped by around 170,000.

The population of Asian elephants is estimated at between 30,000 and 50,000. That’s less than half of the number that walked the planet a century ago.

Those numbers are indicative of human encroachment into once-wild territory and broader environmental issues.

20,000 fewer elephants each year

“The world is losing 20,000 elephants a year — that’s one every 25 minutes. We can’t all head off to Africa to work with the rangers and wardens to protect them. We can’t all set up camp in the markets of the Far East and work to persuade people to stop buying ivory. But we can put our own house in order. Putting a commercial value on ivory and perpetuating a legal market allows the unscrupulous, the crooked and the criminal to launder modern ivory masquerading as ‘antiques’,” commented Will Travers OBE, co-founder and president of the Born Free Foundation in 2018.

E is for elephant

“When you open a children’s first reading book, almost without exception, you will find that ‘E’ is for elephant. If we do not take action today then there is a real possibility that future generations will read ‘E’ is for extinction. Born Free has been fighting the ivory trade for nearly 30 years,” said Virginia McKenna OBE, co-founder and trustee of the Born Free Foundation.

“Elephants are the ‘gardeners of the forest’. They open up dense undergrowth for other species, they disperse and help germinate the seeds of forest plants, maintaining and improving the ‘lungs of the planet’. Protecting elephants means protecting the habitats they rely upon, which means safeguarding the homes of tens of thousands of other species – and our fragile earth, on which we all depend,” explained McKenna.

World elephant population

Part of the reason for the marked decline in elephant numbers is human-animal conflict. That is a by-product of rapid human population growth.

As the number of humans in the world grows, people encroach onto land that traditionally provided elephants with habitat. Houses are built in villages and urban areas, blocking migration routes. When elephants reappear, people chase the animals to protect their homes and agricultural land.

Inevitably, land comes under cultivation in places where elephants have long foraged for food. Some farmers will set off firecrackers or use more deadly means to protect their crops.

Houses can be destroyed by rampaging elephants.  Villagers can be killed by elephants too, in places such as southern India.

I’ve seen how elephant herds following long-established migration routes can disrupt traffic. That happens on the likes of India’s National Highway 766, which cuts through Bandipur National Park. Increased road traffic is another facet of the conflict between elephants and humans.

I’ve talked to naturalists and rangers about the complexities of the issue. There are no easy solutions.

Elephant hunting

Several countries still permit the trophy hunting of elephants. I’ve heard the argument that the revenue raised through hunting can be invested back into managing the environment where elephants roam. Surely there are more palatable ways of encouraging investment?

Trophy hunters’ impact on the elephant population is small compared to the number of animals killed by ivory poachers. How anyone believe it is acceptable to take the life of an elephant?

Why would anyone want to look at an elephant along the barrel of a gun when they can do the same thing through a camera lens? Surely there must be a similar thrill to tracking the animal during a photography expedition?

Doing so means being able to smell the animal, to hear its snorting and flapping of its ears, and observe its behaviour. The resultant ‘trophy’ is an image of the creature in its natural environment.

Elephants in Minneriya National Park

In Sri Lanka’s Minneriya National Park, it is easy to view Asian elephants. During the dry season, it’s common to see elephants gathering by the reservoir within the national park. Even in the rainy season, I saw dozens of elephants grazing by the waterside and drinking from the tank.

Only seven per cent of male elephants in Sri Lanka have tusks. I was informed that historic hunting played a role in removing the animals with large tusks from the gene pool. Some would have been displayed as trophies. Tusks were also offered to temples and sold in the ivory trade.

It was fascinating to observe the elephants interacting from the back of the vehicle. At times, I could have reached out from the Jeep and touched some of the animals. That surprising proximity offered outstanding opportunities for photos of the animals.

I’m fortunate to have seen elephants in both Africa and Asia. I hope that many more generations of humans can experience the sense of awe and joy I felt viewing them in the wild.

Initiatives such as World Elephant Day can help raise awareness to aid their survival.

Books about elephants

Want to learn more about elephants? The following books are available to buy from Amazon:

National Geographic’s Secrets of the Elephants.

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony.

Further information

See the World Elephant Day website to learn more about what people can do to help protect elephants.

The Born Free Foundation website has information about African elephants and Asian elephants, plus a page about Elephants in Crisis.

The Wildlife Conservation Society has a page that raises awareness of the number of elephants being killed each day in Africa.

Thank you for visiting Go Eat Do and reading this post about World Elephant Day on 12 August. If you are planning to visit Sri Lanka, you may be interested in this post with 10 essential travel tips for Sri Lanka.

Stuart Forster, the author of this post, is an award-winning travel writer from the northeast of England. He travelled to Sri Lanka on a tour organised by Indian Odyssey. Photographs illustrating this post are from a Jeep tour of Minneriya National Park.

The elephant photographs illustrating this post are by Why Eye Photography.

If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for the free Go Eat Do newsletter. It’s a hassle-free way of getting links to posts once a month.

‘Like’ the Go Eat Do Facebook page to see more photos and content.