ELEPHANT Facts | Population Decreasing

ELEPHANT

The Elephant is a largest land mammal on earth. There are two species of elephants- the African elephant and the Asian elephant. The Asian elephant is found in India, Sri Lanka, China, and much of Southeast Asia. The weighs of elephant is about 4-6 tons but African elephants weighs up to eight tons. The length is about 18-24 feet. The elephant is distinguished by its massive body, a long trunk and large ears. Its trunk is use as a hand to pick up objects, an arm raised in greeting to a hose for drinking water or bathing, as a horn to trumpet warning. The elephant trunk is actually a long nose used for smelling, breathing, trumpeting, grabbing things and drinking. Asian elephants are different from African elephants. They are smaller in size and their ears are straight at the bottom. Only some of the male elephants have tusks whereas all the African elephant, including females, have tusks. They use tusk to dig for food and water and strip bark from trees. Male elephants use the tusks to battle, but the ivory has also attracted violence of a far more dangerous sort.

Because ivory is so valuable to some humans, many elephants have been killed for their tusks. The human use there tusk for ornaments, medicine and soon on. Poaching of elephants for ivory is a serious threat in some parts of Asia. This trade is illegal today, it has not been completely stopped, and some African elephant populations remain endangered.

The elephants are herbivores animals and they like to eat roots, grasses, fruits and bark. An adult elephant can consume up to 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in a single day. They don’t sleep much, and they roam over great distances while searching for the large quantities of food that they require to fulfill their massive bodies. Elephant form a deep family bonds and they live in tight matriarchal family groups of related females called a herd. The heard is led by the oldest and frequently largest female in the herd, called a matriarch. It is consist of 8-100 individuals depending on the family size and terrain. Elephants are extremely intelligent animals and have memories that span many years.

The elephants have a longer pregnancy than any other mammal. They are pregnant for almost 22 months. They usually give birth to one calf every two to four years. At birth, elephants already weigh about 200 pounds and stand about 3 feet tall.

POPULATION

At the turn of the 20th century, there were a few million African elephants and about 100,000 Asian elephants. Today, there are an estimated 450,000 - 700,000 African elephants and between 35,000 - 40,000 wild Asian elephants. The population of elephant is decreasing because of poaching of elephants for their ivory.

ORGANISATION

There are various conservation communities built to conserve the elephants. WWF is one of them, they use to conserve the elephants from poachers. WWF works with international wildlife trade monitoring network to reduce the major threat that illegal and illicit domestic ivory markets pose to wild elephants. They also works with elephant range state governments, non-government patterns and local people to secure a future for this land largest mammal of the earth.

SAVE THE ELEPHANTS  AND HELP TO INCREASE THE POPULATION OF  THEM