Bees Change Lives and Save Elephants
Learn how the Save the Elephants campaign is managing elephant crop raiding and retaliatory hunting!
So, What’s the Problem?
Elephants can migrate hundreds of miles in a single year, requiring huge amounts of healthy ecosystem for a thriving elephant population. This is becoming more challenging as African communities expand into regions once dominated by elephants.
1
Poaching for Ivory
Poaching for African elephant tusks is still the largest threat to their survival. Thousands of elephants are illegally killed each year for their ivory tusks. The tusks are sold on the black market and turned into carvings, jewelry, and other trinkets. The ivory is also used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Though it is illegal, China and the United States are the two largest consumers of ivory in the world.
2
Human Expansion
As communities grow, they require more resources and new farms to sustain the population. Farms are often created in areas that used to be elephant habitat which has led to growing interactions between elephants and people. Elephants have even been known to destroy and invade stores and even homes.
3
Retaliatory Hunting
Though fences and other preventative measures have been tried, elephants often feast on crops and trample everything they don’t eat. Entire farms have been destroyed in a matter of hours. Farmers who depend on the sale of their crops to support their livelihood will often take matters in to their own hands to prevent their crops from being destroyed. They will throw fire crackers or make sudden noises to scare the elephants away which can cause the elephants to become aggressive. And this is what we are going to focus in on.
Conservation Series
Explore conservation challenges, strategies, and successes happening in ecosystems all around the world! Discover new ways conservationists are thinking outside of the box and how you and your students can make a difference.
