According to Mental _Floss website, there is a great truth to the old adage “an elephant never forgets.” However, I seem to be more and more forgetful as time marches on, and my brain cells flicker and die a little at a time.
I missed World Elephant Day which fell on August 12 this year. I had a little story about this hand-carved elephant my dad brought me when he returned home in 1956 from a two year tour in Pakistan.
It came with two beautiful real ivory tusks. They fell out somewhere along our many family moves. I had over the years tried different types of materials to replacement the tusks. But nothing really looked or felt right. Ivory was not a option for ethical reasons. Also for a long time it’s been illegal to import elephant ivory into the US. And, on July 6, 2016, a new rule extended the ban to cover the sale of ivory that’s already in the US.
Then it dawned on me to leave them off as a reminder of the destruction of thousands of elephants still being slaughtered for their ivory tusks.
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.As of 2016, there are still more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born. . . elephant populations continue to decline. World Elephant Day.
From Mother Nature Network:
1. Elephants around the world are disappearing. African elephants are classified as vulnerable to extinction, and Asian elephants are classified as endangered. There are only about 40,000-50,000 Asian elephants left in the world today.
2. Since 1950, African elephants have lost over 50 percent of their range. They once roamed the continent, but they are now relegated to a few small areas. Less than 20 percent of this remaining habitat is under formal protection, according to World Wildlife Fund.
3. Poachers killed 100,000 African elephants for their ivory from just 2010 to 2012, National Geographic reported last year. According to a study, roughly one of every 12 African elephants was killed by a poacher in 2011 alone. There were around 1.3 million African elephants alive in 1980. In 2012, there were only an estimated 420,000 to 690,000 elephants left.
4. Most poaching today is not done by poor farmers needing an income for their family. Instead, poaching is done by well-organized and well-funded criminal traffickers. The money gained from poaching and selling ivory funds wars and criminal organizations.
5. Elephants play an important ecological role, including creating trails that work as fire breaks during brush fires, fertilizing the soil with manure, digging holes that create access to water for other animals, and much more. Without elephants, ecosystems are thrown out of balance.
A 2014 article in National Geographic stated:
Ivory-seeking poachers have killed 100,000 African elephants in just three years, according to a new study that provides the first reliable continent-wide estimates of illegal kills. During 2011 alone, roughly one of every twelve African elephants was killed by a poacher.
In central Africa, the hardest-hit part of the continent, the regional elephant population has declined by 64 percent in a decade, a finding of the new study that supports another recent estimate developed from field surveys. The demand for ivory, most notably in China and elsewhere in Asia, and the confusion caused by a one-time sale of confiscated ivory have helped keep black market prices high in Africa.
The morale of this story is to never forget the elephant and support legislation and those efforts to save these beautiful animals for our planet.