Things are not going particularly well for elephants. We have already told you that their numbers have been steadily decreasing for decades. Elephants are endangered and threatened with extinction, just like the mammoth. How can it be that an animal loved by so many is in such danger? Many elephants have tusks, and ivory is something humans have always wanted.. Primitive man did not only want the mammothís meat, he wanted its ivory too - the oldest sculptures are ivory objects made about 25,000 years ago. The Romans killed thousands of elephants for their ivory and made tables and beds from it. The North African elephants were wiped out by the Romans.

Hunting elephants for their ivory was very popular in the 19th century, both in Asia and Africa. Ivory art was mainly produced in Japan and China. In the 1960s and 70s ivory hunting reached a dramatic peak. Even though there were international limitations, elephants were being killed at random for their ivory. In Asia only bulls have tusks and ivory hunting disturbed the natural balance between the sexes. Most elephants were killed illegally by poachers..

Fortunately in 1989 enough people agreed that all this had to stop, and a conference forbade the international ivory trade. If people own an ivory object, they can sell it, but they cannot take it to another country. The price of ivory went down instantly and so did the amount of poaching. Kenyaís president symbolically set fire to a heap of tusks. The world had to realize that ivory is not beautiful: behind every ivory object there is a murdered elephant. Were all elephants now safe?

Countries in Southern Africa stockpiled quite a quantity of ivory and at the same time their elephant populations began to thrive. In Japan in particular, many people use ivory name seals. In 1997 a few countries in Southern Africa were allowed to sell some ivory to Japan. Unforutnately many poachers misinterpreted the news and believing the ivory trade to have been reopened, started the killing again.

In 2000 once more no-one was allowed to export ivory, but it remained possible to give export permits: so the threat remains real.

What should you do if you own ivory? You had better not sell it or you will become an ivory trader yourself. So keep it but do not show it off, so that no-one becomes interested in it. It is only when no-one wants ivory anymore that this threat will disappear.

Elephants are big, so they need much food and space. There are many human beings too and they also need food and space. Countries that have wild elephants are not wealthy either. That is why the Asiatic elephant is really in trouble, because Asia is so densely populated. Humans have taken too much space so that there is not enough left for elephants. It can happen that elephants will enter a rice field and eat its entire contents. In the space of one night elephants can eat what was supposed to feed a whole family for a year. This is why farmers in Asia and Africa desperately try to chase elephants off and even try to kill them.

Elephants are slowly being driven back to smaller protected areas, like in Southern Africa. As you read this, the problem is that there might be too many in a small area. The authorities sometimes try to solve the problem by simply killing a number of elephants: this is called culling. This is obviously considered unacceptable by elephant-lovers. The result is that elephants become dangerous and shy.

Elephants in captivity are a separate and complex problem. We have already discussed circuses and zoos. In Asia elephants have been captured and tamed for a long time. Taming is a very hard and unnatural process. Afterwards they were set to work, usually in forestry. There is not much work left for them now, which is an extra source of problems. Some are sold to owners who do not want the best for them. Fortunately there are new projects that aim to reintroduce elephants to the wilderness, even though that is far from easy.

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