Can We Do More For The Elephants?

By Okechukwu Okugo

The future of African elephants is undoubtedly in jeopardy as a result of the apocalypse declared on them by poachers because of their ivory.
For example, Gabon in West Africa which holds a substantial amount of Africa's remaining forest elephants in 2004 had an estimated 28,500 elephants but by 2012 the number fell to about 7000 elephants according to National Geographic; plummeting with more than 20,000 in number due largely to poaching.
In the African continent, people are poisoning, spearing and shooting the elephant dastardly at such a rate some scientists declared them "ecologically extinct."
Today, "there are now fewer than 500,000 wild African elephants - maybe no more than half the number - and barely 32,000 Asian elephants" according to National Geographic.

Yet with all these dire future facing this beloved animals, some people still call out for a mass killing of elephant populations in some areas.

In the late 20th century, South Africa's wildlife officials gave the order to kill off entire elephant families in some fenced parks e.g. in Kruger park. Simply because they were worried that if a fenced elephant population grew too large, they would consume all the vegetation. The result being the mass slaughter of the elephants, sometimes referred to as "culling" or controlled killing.

William G Moseley, a professor and a chair of geography at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. in an online Aljazeera article, in 2013 criticized the Botswana Government ban on the hunting of elephants claiming that "this ban not only further stresses the environment, but eliminates a significant revenue stream to local communities from international hunting permit sales."

This is because the Chobe National Park, Botswana, which covers approximately 11,000 square kilometers has an estimated elephant herd of 70,000. As a result, Moseley was canvassing for a mass killing of elephant families because of the certain fear that they are too large in number and would be trampling vegetation, felling trees and driving down total biodiversity, including other types of wildlife. Thus, proclaiming that "the goal of protecting elephants at all costs seems misguided..." And calling this elephant population, "too much of a good thing."

But the truth is that the amazing scene of hundreds of elephants bathing in the Chobe River has been drawing a large number of tourists and those on photo safaris who also watch and take photo shots of the elephants frolicking in large numbers on nearby plains. Thereby driving up revenue instead of diminishing it.  
Pitiable of all is the nature of elephants; they have so many things in common with humans. Elephants show strong emotions like humans. Besides crying out tears, elephants keep friends and families, they help others in difficult situations and respond when they see another in distress. All these have been proven by scientific studies of the animals even in the wild.

A two-year-old African elephant baby climbs on the back of his mother in the Nyiregyhaza Animal Park in Budapest, Hungary, one day after the mother died. The baby stayed near the lifeless body of his mother for 14 hours after her death, and wept after the body was removed.

 PHOTOGRAPH BY ATTILA BALAZS, MTI/AP

An African elephant spends time with a young one at Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CB PICTURES, WESTEND61/CORBIS

Considering the bleak future facing them, is it not better to find a way to continue helping this special animals? Is it not better for us to do all within our powers to help save the elephants from poaching and other dangers?

Though poachers have waged war against the elephant, yet "they cannot fight against us; they cannot win this battle," the very reason we should do more to save the elephants.

Since elephants are killed to take away their ivory, governments should ban the sale of ivory; especially in China where this ivory is in very high demand fueling this uncontrollable poaching of elephants in Africa. Stiffer penalty should be put in place for those caught in the ivory trade. This will dissuade poaching and saving many elephants.

Many animals have been reintroduced or moved from one location to another.
For those who think that the number of elephants are too much in some areas and needs to be cut down by killing them, is it not better to move elephant families from one location to another where their number has plummeted; and more measures taken to curb their poaching in the wild?

Nothing done for these defenseless animals to help them survive extinction is way too much.