The Mighty Eater (Loxodonta africana) A Belated World Elephant Day August 12th

            Kruger National Park 
South Africa

Sorry I'm late.

World Elephant Day is an international annual event on August 12, dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world's elephants.

Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade. An estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving only 400,000 remaining. An insatiable lust for ivory products in the Asian market makes the illegal ivory trade extremely profitable, and has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of African elephants. 

Between 2010 and 2014, the price of ivory in China tripled, driving illicit poaching through the roof. If the elephants are to survive, the demand for ivory must be drastically reduced. As of 2011, the world is losing more elephants than the population can reproduce, threatening the future of African elephants across the continent. Bull elephants with big tusks are the main targets and their numbers have been diminished to less than half of the females. Female African elephants have tusks and are also killed, which has a terrible effect on the stability of elephant societies, leaving an increasing number of orphaned baby elephants. As of 2017, there are still more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born. . . elephant populations continue to decline.

Elephants are a keystone species. It means they create and maintain the ecosystems in which they live and make it possible for a myriad of plant and animal species to live in those environments as well. The loss of elephants gravely affects many species that depend on elephant-maintained ecosystems and causes major habitat chaos and a weakening to the structure and diversity of nature itself. To lose the elephant is to lose an environmental caretaker and an animal from which we have much to learn. – Wikipedia

Taken in: South Africa / Mpumalanga / Bushbuckridge / Sparta (show map)

Taken on: September 11, 2011

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South Africa

Kruger National Park

World Elephant Day

August 12

Bush Elephant

Loxodonta africana

Heaviest Land Mammal

Herbivore

Various Habitats

Stay Near Water

Keystone Species

A Fission–fusion Society

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IUCN Vulnerable

Sue Roehl

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Sets appears in: • South Africa, Sept. 2011

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