Why Are African Elephants Significant To The Ecosystem

When one imagines what elephants are like in the wild, they imagine giant animals roaming the land eating plenty of food and drinking plenty of water. The average person may not know, or understand, that there are people that practice the illegal killing of elephants, or poaching, in order to obtain and then sell or trade that ivory for whatever is valuable to the poacher. Poaching is illegal because it has led to the significant decline in the elephant population in recent years and can very well lead to severe endangerment or worse, extinction. Elephants are more than just animals that graze on the land, but they are animals that can spread the seeds of the plants they eat. Elephants roam a large area of land, and therefore, spread seeds via their dung. This is great for plants that have no ways of transportation, except for falling next to their parent plant. Along with the vast spreading of seeds, “the seeds that are in elephant stomachs are softened, which means the seeds are able to germinate faster than seeds that have not been softened”(Scientificamerican). Due to this there must be lots of plants that have been dependent on elephants because of co-evolution. The poaching of elephants is an issue that must be looked into not only because of reasons stated above, but also because the extinction of a certain species can only cause a domino effect of cataclysms.

Because of the poaching of game like the elephant, the number of species will start to diminish. What hunters brought to the villages of Botswana was the money and the meat from the animals to feed the many people that go hungry everyday. Hunters that would take animals such as an elephant wouldn’t take any of the meat for themselves but rather they give all of the meat to the villages in the area. However, when poaching starts to take over, there will be zero meat or money that will be put back into the community. Poachers that kill elephants are only after one thing and that is the ivory from the elephant tusks. After taking the tusks, the elephant is left to rot. Another animal that is sought after by poachers in Botswana is the rhino. The rhino is poached for their horns, which are supposedly an aphrodisiac in China so the demand is high. Because of these effects, groups like SCI are so important to different places around the world. The money brought in by the hunters is used to hire conservation officers to protect the rhinos and elephants and to buy land that will be put into game preserves so the numbers of these species will increase because there aren’t any pressures from hunting or

As they wander they naturally produce waste that fertilizes the ground by dispersing seeds in new areas. This helps the primary producers population increase due to the waste containing seeds that the elephant once ate and recycling it into the environment. In the environment and complex food web, elephants are not hunted by a wide variety predator, since there size, weight, and strength are higher than other animals. It's primary predator consists of tiger that goes after the smaller elephants in the herd for they are easier to catch. Another predator that causes great harm to their populations are humans hunting and poaching them to gain a tusk that is seen as wealthy.

The official title of the world’s largest land dwelling animal belongs to the elephant, more specifically, the African elephant. Elephants also are some of the most deadly animals, which therefore increase the danger of human and elephant interactions. The more human interactions occur, the more deaths result, whether it is the elephant or the human who dies. These animals, surprisingly, are socially apt; their trunk is used for more than just eating and drinking- it is used for socializing. They are complex animals who live in large familial herds-females stay with their family throughout their entire lives while males only stay for approximately fifteen years (Elephant Protection, 1). Elephants possess a great memory and only forget what they learn occasionally and rarely, giving way to the “an elephant never forgets” saying (Maloiy, 178c). Despite how many people use the beloved saying, elephants may not be around much longer due to the shortened life span and increased mortality rates. Due to their incisor teeth, tusks, being extremely expensive and profitable, they are being murdered for the wealth they carry. This, coupled with the life span shortening because of malicious treatments and brutal practices reduces the life span of the African elephant from 56 to 16 years and the Asian elephant from 42 to 19 years (Elephant Protection, 1). According to what the statistics show, elephants may be following their ancestors to their death. Of the group of mammals called

In Africa, elephants affect the environment by tearing down and trampling certain trees and shrubs across the savannahs. This changes the density and the composition of the trees and other plants which alters the original state of the environment. Such changes influence the way the savannah ecosystem functions. However, the destruction of various plants appeals to many of the grazing species, due to their ability to make

    The Illegal Animals Trade is where people pay a high price to have a Sumatran Elephant in their zoo. When these Elephants are not in the wild,they are not producing babies, so the population is decreasing. Next, poaching is a big factor in why they are becoming extinct. People are hunting these Elephants for their tusks. Even though this type of Elephant’s tusks are smaller than others, the ivory is a big profit

Imagine yourself in Africa roaming the land along the country's most beloved inhabitant the African Elephant one of the most significant creatures which symbolizes strength and power. Now imagine yourself as an elephant running for your life because a couple poacher is trying to shoot you in the head just so they can get a hold of your beautiful ivory or tusk. The IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature] Red List is a list of precise criteria that evaluates the extinction risk of thousands of species and subspecies all over the world. It is also a powerful tool for pushing the government to protect threatened species like the African Elephant, and for most of the plant and animal wildlife worldwide. Blanc, J. one of the co-sponsors

Poaching is the illegal killing of wildlife animals. Poaching can be found in almost every part of the globe. In Alberta, Canada, six people amounted seventy one thousand dollars of fines for multiple poaching charges through the course of seven years (Unknown, 2015). The African forest elephants lost sixty two percent of their population from 2002 to 2012 because of ivory poaching (Nature, 2013). In India, a combined effort of poaching, prey depletion and habitat destruction led to a tiger population of fewer than 4000 (Sharma, Wright, Joseph, & Desai, 2014). Therefore poaching can accelerate the decline of a species making them easier to become a vulnerable or endangered species. Poachers also threaten species biodiversity,

The African elephant population has dwindled because of poaching—from 1.3 million to around 600,000 just during 1979-1987. In the 1980’s, there was a 60% decline in the African elephants, which they have yet had time to recover from (Effects). Poaching does not just include the African elephants; the black rhino population has decreased 97.6% since 1960. At current poaching rates, these incredible animals could become extinct in our lifetime, with the African elephants vulnerable to be endangered and the rhinos critically endangered (Don’t). China, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, Tanzania, and Vietnam are the eight countries of “primary concern” when it comes to elephants becoming endangered, published by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. CITES has issued Cameroon, Congo, the DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Garon, Mozambique, and Nigeria as secondary concern

Poaching is a severe situation that has been a problem for a while.Poaching is the worst crime there is. Reason why I say this, is because they’re harming innocent animals that didn’t even harm them. Those elephants are just trying survive in their harsh life and reality. Poachers should just back off those elephants, and let them live their lives. Society should create some sort of security mechanism to stop the poachers. Something like watchtowers in the Savannah to see if there are any unwanted guest. Or hidden cameras in trees and bushes. Finally, since the poachers are gonna be walking on the Savannah, they should add trap wires so that when they trip on it will cause a super loud alarm to go off.

Just imagine life without any elephants, wiped out just like the dinosaurs. In the early 1980’s, there were more than a million reported elephants in Africa. Tragically, during that decade, 600,000 elephants were destroyed for ivory products. Today, conceivably no more than 400,000 elephants remain across the continent. Elephants are facing a very real threat of extinction; In fact, the African elephants are listed on the

Textual Evidence: “Elephants are also losing their habitats—and ancient migratory routes—due to expanding human settlements, plantation development and the construction of infrastructure such as roads, canals and pipelines.”

Elephants are also losing their habitats and ancient migratory routes due to expanding human settlements, plantation development, and the construction of infrastructure such as roads, canals

Elephant populations suffered a drop in numbers that carried the species into the endangered animals list. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about ten million elephants lived in Africa. Presently, the ten million is reduced to half a million because of illegal hunting and habitat loss. Studies of the population show twenty-two thousand were killed in 2012 and twenty-five thousand in 2011. When comparing the death rate to the natural population growth, there is a possibility the largest mammal on Earth could be extinct soon (Vaughan 1). Because the elephant is the largest animal to walk on land, the greatly increasing human population affects the elephant population first. They live in some regions of the world that have the densest human population which continues to grow, which therefore continuously decreases their own population (Bryner 1). As the human population swiftly increases, the elephant population in turn, decreases. This is so because they cannot cohabitate the same living space. Elephants and humans cannot cohabitate because they would kill each other due to the inability to communicate. About population recovery, the Animal wildlife foundation states, “Populations of elephants- especially in Southern and Eastern Africa- that once showed promising signs of recovery could be at risk due to the recent surge in poaching for the illegal ivory trade”(1). Poaching presents one of the main issues that make recovery so difficult for these animals.

Specific animals like elephants, tigers, lions, and rhinoceroses should be preserved because of their roles within their respective ecosystems. Elephants, the ¨mega gardeners” of the forest, are essential to the transportation of seeds that maintain tree diversity. When we lose elephants, full extinction is estimated to occur by 2020, we lose not only the species but their ecological role (African Elephants face extinction, 2008). The wise leaders of past lives, elephants used to settle debates of the forest and create vital watering holes for smaller animals as the noble masters in fables told by African natives. When poaching finally takes the last living elephant due to selfishness, many African countries lose both a species, and a culture. Tigers - walking gold to poachers- are worth a fortune on the black market for their beautiful fur coats and bones, used for a delicate Chinese wine (Guynup, S., 2015). The last three thousand wild tigers are facing