How many elephants are there in Africa and why are African elephants endangered?
There are now only an estimated 400,000 African elephants left in the wild.
African elephants are endangered largely owing to man’s greed for ivory which had to elephants being hunted and killed for their valuable tusks.
To give you an idea of just how many elephants are lost to the ivory trade, in the 1970's there were 1.3 million elephants. Less than a third of that number are now left.
African Forest Elephants living in the forests of the Basin are at the greatest risk from the threat of poachers than any other species and their numbers continue to steadily decline.
Moreover, humans are responsible for huge habit loss of African elephants. As the human population in Africa increases, more and more land is converted to agriculture.
A smaller habit has meant that elephants and humans are coming into contact with one another more than they did historically, and this is causing conflict. Elephants are very intelligent creature and sometimes raid farmers’ crop for food. This can lead to both humans and elephants being killed in the conflict.
Once common throughout Africa and Asia, elephant numbers fell dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries,
largely due to the ivory trade and habitat loss.
While some populations are now stable, poaching, human-wildlife conflict
and habitat destruction continue to threaten the species.