African Forest Elephant

African forest elephants are cousins to the African savanna elephant and are critically endangered. Because they like dense forests it prohibits traditional counting methods such as visual identification. Their population is usually counted through “dung counts” an analysis of the density and distribution of the feces. They are smaller than all of their elephant cousins. Forest elephants also have a slower reproductive rate than savanna elephants, which means they cannot bounce back from population declines as quickly as the other elephant species. Their last strongholds are located in Gabon and the Republic of Congo, some smaller populations remain in other African countries such as Cameroon and Central African Republic. Because the diet of forest elephants is dominated by fruit, they play a crucial role in dispersing many tree species, particularly the seeds of large trees which tend to have high carbon content.  The main threat to the African Forest elephants is the fact that they have less room to roam than before as the expanding human population is converting land into agriculture, settlements, and developments. In 1976 the elephants had three million square miles by 2007 they had just over one million square miles. Industries like logging and mining destroy the habitat and also open access to remote elephant forests for poachers.  All of these push elephants into smaller islands of protected areas and hinder elephants’ freedom to roam. in 1975 there was a population of three million elephants now there are approximately 40,000 elephants left in the wild. The human species may be killing them, but we can help we can save the planet together. Remember, be prepared, be aware, be an awareness spreader.

-Kaavya Nanda