"By now all the adult females were down, struggling and kicking, the chopper circled, the rifle cracked and from the sound of it knew this was the bullet that mercifully would bring death...... As the darts containing M99 struck them, they began to waver, to tusk each other and mount the falling bodies. A young bull, his family lying dead unconscious around him was the last left standing, fight a full ten minutes before he fell." - Witnessing elephant culling in Kruger National Park.

THE KILLING
   Although the African elephant is not as rare as its Asiatic cousin, it is nevertheless vanishing steadily from almost all its native habitats, hunted down for its ivory tusks.In the 1970s, the value of ivory reach the price, weight for weight, of gold. Consequently, it is used as hard currency. It was during this period that some of the heaviest elephant losses was experienced. From 1970-77, Kenya lost more than 60,000 of its 120,000 elephants, mostly through slaughter and poaching.The African elephant once roamed the entire continent of Africa, but have been reduced to groups in scattered areas south of the Sahara.Demand for ivory, combined with habitat loss from human settlement, has led to a dramatic decline in elephant populations in the last few decades.

As the price of ivory soared, poachers became more organized, using automatic weapons, motorized vehicles, and airplanes to chase and kill thousands of elephants. To governments and revolutionaries mired in civil wars and strapped for cash, poaching ivory became a way to pay for more firearms and supplies.Local people often had few other ways to make a living, and subsistence farmers or herders could make more by selling the tusks of one elephant than they could make in a dozen years of farming or herding. When humans and elephants live close together, elephants raid crops, and rogue elephants (aggressive male elephants during the breeding season) rampage through villages.

HABITAT LOSS
Prolonged drought or loss of habitat through creeping desertification may cause herds to migrate over great distances to find new feeding and watering grounds. They often move in on farmed land, tampling crops and causing trouble for residents and farmers.Local people shoot elephants because they fear them and regard them as pests. Some countries have established culling programs: park officials or hunters kill a predetermined number of elephants to keep herds manageable and minimize human-elephant conflicts.

ONE IN THE BOND OF LOVE
Wild elephants have strong family ties. The females and young are social, living in groups under the leadership of an older female or matriarch. Adult males are solitary, although they stay in contact with the females over great distances, using sounds well below the range of human hearing. Family groups communicate with each other using these low-frequency vibrations. It is believed that when an elephant dies, its family will mourn for its death, just as humans do.

An African bull elephant (adult male) can weigh as much as 14,000 to 16,000 pounds (6300 to 7300 kg) and grow to 13 feet (four meters) at the shoulder. Oddly, the African elephant's large ears match the shape of the African continent. Their elongated incisors (front teeth), more commonly known as tusks, grow up to 7 inches (18 cm) per year. All elephants have tusks, except for female Asian elephants. The largest of the African bulls' tusks can weigh as much as 160 pounds (73 kg) and grow to 12 feet (4 meters) long. The average life span of an elephant is about 70 years. Elephants reach breeding age at about 15 years of age. Females generally give birth to one 200-pound baby after a 22-month pregnancy.

WE NEED THEM !
Animals and humans, like the pygmies of the Central African Republic, depend on the openings elephants create in the forest and brush and in the waterholes they dig. Even elephant droppings are important to the environment. Baboons and birds pick through dung for undigested seeds and nuts, and dung beetles reproduce in these deposits. The nutrient-rich manure replenishes depleted soil. Finally, it is a vehicle for seed dispersal. Some seeds will not germinate unless they have passed through an elephant's digestive system.

CONSERVATION
The setting up of game reserves with highly trained and fully equipped game wardens to watch over these reserves, to monitor herd movements and to patrol the borders where poachers are liable to cross and steal into reserves help protect the elephants. Worldwide concern over the decline of the elephant led to a complete ban on the ivory trade in 1990. Some governments have cracked down hard on poachers. In some countries, park rangers are told to shoot poachers on sight. The rangers' job thus becomes violent and dangerous, as sometimes both sides shoot to kill. Ecotourism is practised to save the elephants and also provide revenue from tourism for the countries concerned.

DO A PART, SAVE THEM !
The threat facing the African elephant is now critical:drought and starvation, land development and the ivory trade are slowly pushing this noble animal towards extinction. You can play your part and help by refusing to buy, accept or wear ivory in any form, and explain why to retailers and friends. This will help destroy the status attached to it and may help, one day, to bring the trade down to sustainable levels.

REMEMBER: If there is NO TRADE, there would be NO KILLING !