Rise and fall of the mighty elephants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In former times, elephants were distributed throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America, living in a wide variety of habitats and climates, hot and cold. They also varied enormously in size, from giants more than 4 m tall, to dwarves, which stood only 1-1.5 m tall. The latter evolved on isolated islands, including Malta, Cyprus, and Crete in Europe, and the Channel Islands in America, off the Californian coast.

 

 

 

 

 

Two of the three surviving species live in Africa, one in Asia. Formerly, the savanna elephant (Loxodonta africana) was distributed all over the African continent, with the exception of deserts and rainforest areas. Today, it is restricted to savannas and semi-deserts in eastern and southern Africa. The closely related, but smaller forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) lives in rainforests of central and western Africa. Some scientists still consider the savanna elephant and the forest elephant as belonging to the same species.

Formerly, the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) was distributed across Asia, from Asia Minor in the west to northern China in the east, and southwards into Indonesia. Today, it is restricted to small pockets of forest in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Yunnan Province of southern China, Indochina, and on Sumatra and Borneo.

The origin of the Bornean elephant, subspecies borneensis, which is much smaller than other Asian elephants, remains the subject of debate. Some claim that it is descended from introduced elephants. New research, however, states that it may have been living in Borneo for more than 10,000 years. Some scientists even regard it as a separate species, Elephas borneensis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elephants are very social, living in herds. Smaller herds are family units, led by a matriarch, which is the oldest cow in the herd, with her daughters and their offspring. Young bulls leave the herd, when they reach puberty, living alone or in loose-knit male groups. Sometimes younger females leave the group to form their own herd. However, they still keep in contact with their maternal herd, and smaller groups often join to form larger herds for shorter or longer periods, occasionally comprising hundreds of animals.

Ovulation of females is normally linked to the season of abundance, i.e. the end of the wet season. In periods of drought and famine they simply do not ovulate. When females are receptive, bulls travel long distances to seek them out.

When bulls are in rut, secretions ooze from a gland on the side of their head, signifying a higher production of male hormones, a condition called musth. During musth, bulls are highly aggressive, and tamed Asian elephants in musth have been known to kill their mahout (trainer), without any apparent reason.

The gestation period is almost two years. A new-born savanna elephant calf weighs about 120 kilos, an Asian about 100 kilos. Six years old, the calf weighs about a ton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In former days, these great tuskers were the prime target of trophy hunters, and today no such animals exist. The Asian bulls have smaller tusks than the savanna elephant, and those of the cows are very small indeed. In the Sri Lankan subspecies, maximus, only 10% of the bulls grow tusks, the cows none at all. This trend has been reinforced by poachers, who select the bulls with the largest tusks.

 

 

 

 

 

Elephant dung is often visited by butterflies, which suck moisture and nutrients from it. The dung is also much utilized by dung beetles, or scarabs, which form small balls out of the dung, roll them to some chosen place, lay eggs on them, and bury them. The dung is food for their larvae, which are often eaten by various birds, including hornbills. Dung beetles are described on the page Animals: Animal tracks and traces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This elephant became so famous that president Jomo Kenyatta, in 1970, declared him ’a living monument’ – a national treasure protected by presidential decree. To avoid him being shot by poachers, Ahmed was guarded day and night by two appointed rangers, and he lived to die of old age in 1974, about 55 years old.

People always believed that his tusks were among the largest ever recorded, but, as it turned out after his death, they weighed ’only’ c. 67 kilos each – far less than other tusks recorded.

Today, a cast of Ahmed is exhibited in front of the National Museum in Nairobi.

 

 

 

 

 

In 2008, the African elephant was listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), but, unfortunately, there was no distinction between savanna elephant and forest elephant.

Ivory is much treasured for carving, especially by the Chinese, and this is the main reason for the decline of elephants worldwide. Officially, elephants are fully protected, and trade with ivory is strictly controlled. But in spite of these precautions, all three surviving species are threatened with extinction. In several places, almost all bulls have been shot by poachers. In Kerala in South India, for example, there are now 20 cows for every bull, and there may be too few bulls to mate with all cows.

Another big problem is that these huge animals are great wanderers and need large areas to survive. Everywhere across Asia and Africa, humans have encroached on elephant habitat, causing the elephants to eat crops, hereby becoming great pests. Naturally, people want to protect their crops, and there are many instances of people being killed, when they try to scare away elephants from their fields.

In many cases, it has become necessary to restrict the movements of elephants by erecting electrical fences or digging deep trenches, which the huge animals cannot cross. In some cases, whole herds of elephants have been eradicated, as they had become notorious crop raiders.

In all countries with populations of African elephants they are protected in national parks and game sanctuaries. However, in areas, where this protection is efficient, population densities often become too high, causing the elephants to destroy their own habitat. Previously, large-scale culling took place in these cases, but this practice ceased in 1988, and today numbers are controlled by contraception or translocation. However, most of their range (70%) is outside sanctuaries, and in these areas poaching is prevalent.

During the last 35 years, there has been a steady decline in numbers of African elephants. In 1979, the total population was estimated at 1.3 million, and possibly there were as many as 3 million. By 1989, this number had plummeted to about 609,000, of which c. 214,000 were forest elephants – a number much lower than had previously been thought. From 1977 to 1989, elephant populations declined by 74% in East Africa, and after 1987, the savanna elephant declined by 80% across Africa, from Cameroun to Somalia, and the forest elephant declined by 43%. In later years, this trend has ceased in eastern and southern Africa, and populations have increased by c. 4% per annum. In 2012, IUCN estimated a total of c. 440,000 African elephants (both species).

The current range of the Asian elephant is highly fragmented. In 2008, IUCN listed it as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60-75 years. The total population of wild Asian elephants may now be as low as 40,000-50,000, or maybe even lower, as this number is an estimate. Researchers believe that about half of the population lives in India. In Sri Lanka, their number is about 6,000 – half as many as in the 1800s. However, Sri Lanka still has the highest density of Asian elephants anywhere. Numbers are unknown in Southeast Asia, but only scattered herds exist. Almost everywhere the species is declining, particularly in Southeast Asia. It seems, however, that the population in West Ghats, South India, is increasing.

CITES has listed the Asian elephant under Appendix I, which means that trade in elephants and elephant products is illegal.