Did you know?

• Population in Central Africa has a 64% estimated decline.
• The average size of tusks has shrunk over the past 100 years, due to the slaughter of elephants for their ivory, which has made the “large tusk gene” increasingly scarce.
• Half of their population has vanished during the last 75 years, a trend that is thought to be ongoing and most likely irreversible.
• Poaching is increasing dramatically in some of the historically less-affected southern African populations (w.r.t CITES Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants programme (MIKE))
• Despite an international ban on the trafficking of elephant tusk ivory, China’s thirst for “white gold/ivory” drives the poaching of over 30,000 elephants in Africa each year.
• Large quantities of elephant ivory have been utilized to create billiard balls, piano keys, identification tags, jewelry and several other products for mere human enjoyment.
• Tusks are typically enlarged canine teeth in mammals, but in elephants, they are elongated incisors. One third part of the tusk is actually embedded deep in the elephant’s head, invisible from outside. Elephants’ tusks never stop growing.
• They have the longest gestation period of any mammal i.e. 22 long months!
• More than 40,000 muscles and tendons manipulate their trunk, that’s 60 times more muscles than the human body!