The world's largest land-living mammal can travel 30-40 mph,
and “when in distress will weep salt tears.”
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| Save the Elephants pic |
“The shape of an African elephant’s ear is the shape of Africa; the shape of an Indian elephant’s ear is the shape of India, as if nature had kept an ear to the ground when listening to the elephant’s territorial requests.”
Yes, this is about elephants, missing for too long from these blog posts. Elephants, who go back to antiquity, mythologized and admired since then. But now, in our selfish, cruel world, they are poached and slaughtered for their body parts, captured for display in zoos (falsely claimed to be conservation efforts), forced into entertainment and animal slave labor, orphaned as babies and robbed of elephant knowledge and culture – all acts leaving them without the safety and security they deserve.
Sacred Elephant
is Heathcote Williams’s long poem in praise of elephants’ nature and in despair
at their threatened extinction. Contrasting
the elephant’s noble and intelligent qualities over time with its endangered life
now, the poem is sad beyond words.
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| Caretaker with orphan |
Side 1, the poem itself, is full of quotable quotes and astonishing facts about elephants. Side 2 is filled with even more information about them, read by Harry Burton and Caroline Webster; she in particular does a magnificent job.
Naïve as it may be, I wish whenever I listen to it that
Sacred Elephant’s content and presentation could change the hearts and
minds of those intent on ivory and money. But I know that advocacy and
activism
are what it will take to make a difference for elephants.
For
some years now, Save the Elephants (SaveTheElephants.org) has been an
organization I believe in and help when I can.
Partnering with the San Francisco-based Wildlife Conservation Network
(WCN) about six years ago, it started the Elephant Crisis Fund
(SaveTheElephants.org/project/elephant-crisis-fund/).
In case a reminder is
needed, here are a few reasons to “save the elephants”: (1) Elephants are Africa’s gardeners and landscape engineers, planting
seeds and creating
habitat wherever they roam. (2) Without urgent action
to save their species, elephants could disappear from the wild within a
single generation. (3) Approximately
100,000 elephants in Africa were killed for their ivory in just
three years between the years 2010 & 2012.
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| Galena and Gawa Dodo pic |
Q
-- in what African countries are elephants found? (I'm assuming any count would
include both forest and savanna elephants.)
A
-- African elephants are found across the continent. Their numbers are
high in much of Southern Africa, with Botswana holding the largest population
and much of the smaller populations in Western Africa.
Q -- about how many elephants survive in Africa? (I read various numbers. And I know the total must change all too often, given the heinous poaching that continues there.)
Q -- about how many elephants survive in Africa? (I read various numbers. And I know the total must change all too often, given the heinous poaching that continues there.)
A
-- There are roughly around 415,000 elephants left in Africa and another
potential 113,000 in areas that are not well surveyed.
“Elephants cannot be manufactured. Once they’re gone, they cannot be replaced.”– Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Founder and President of Save the Elephants
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| Elephants in Botswana HSI pic |
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If you’d like to comment on this blog post, go to 1moreonce.blogspot.com. Better yet, please go to https://donate.wildnet.org/.
All good reasons to save the elephants.
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