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News articles on Elephants

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Mongabay.com news articles on elephants in blog format. Updated regularly.

Elephants may explain Mount Kilimanjaro's bamboo enigma
(6/25/2008) At nearly 6,000 meters in height, Mount Kilimanjaro is both Africa's tallest mountain and the world's highest solitary peak, home to a diverse range of habitats that support a large variety of plant species. Yet, unlike any other mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro contains no bamboo.


Borneo's pygmy elephants are an alien species
(4/18/2008) A new study suggests that the Borneo pygmy elephant -- one of Borneo's best known and charismatic animals -- is actually an invasive species introduced from a neighboring island by a former sultan. The finding offers hope that in Borneo, the elephant can avoid the fate that befell it in its native Java: extinction.


$100 billion worth of carbon released from deforestation in Riau, Sumatra
(2/27/2008) A WWF study found that deforestation of nearly 10.5 million acres of tropical forests and peat swamp in central Sumatra's Riau Province over the past 25 years has generated 3.7 gigatons of carbon dioxide. Based on today's $32 closing price for a ton of carbon dioxide for European Union Allowances, the emissions had a theoretical trading value of $118 billion, assuming they could have been traded at the full E.U. carbon price at the time (voluntary offsets would have been worth about $13 billion).


Disappearance of elephants, giraffes causes ecological chain reaction
(1/10/2008) The disappearance of elephants, giraffes and other grazing animals from the eastern African savanna could send ecological ripple effects all the way to the savanna's ants and the acacia trees they inhabit, warns a new study published in the journal Science.


Elephants use smell to distinguish hunters from farmers
(10/18/2007) Elephants can determine whether a human is a friend or foe by their scent, reports new research published in Current Biology.


Chinese demand takes toll on wildlife in Burma (Myanmar)
(9/4/2007) If the market of Mong La is anything to go by, the remaining wild elephants, tigers and bears in Myanmar's forests are being hunted down slowly and sold to China.


Meeting seeks to save Sumatra's tigers and elephants from extinction
(8/29/2007) Over 100 wildlife experts and government officials will meet in Indonesia Wednesday to draft an action plan to save Sumatran elephnts and tigers from extinction, reports Reuters.


Elephants get Photo IDs for Protection
(8/15/2007) Asian elephants don't carry photo identification, so scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society and India's Nature Conservation Foundation are providing the service free of charge by creating a photographic archive of individual elephants, which can help save them as well.


Rare pygmy elephants endangered by logging in Borneo
(8/8/2007) Pygmy elephants are increasingly threatened by logging and forest conversion for agriculture in their native Borneo, reports a new satellite tracking study by WWF.


African elephants get 9-year reprieve
(6/14/2007) African countries have agreed to extend a ban on ivory exports for another nine years. In a deal reached Wednesday at the meeting of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in The Hague, four African countries will be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles to raise funds for conservation and community development efforts. The ivory had been intercepted from black market transactions and the sale by Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe had been previously approved. The four countries say their elephant populations are increasing thanks to conservation and law enforcement efforts.


Massive wildlife population discovered in Southern Sudan
(6/12/2007) Aerial surveys by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society found more than 1.3 million white-eared kob, tiang antelope and Mongalla gazelle in Southern Sudan, despite decades of civil war. The population, which includes more than 8,000 elephants, rivals that of the legendary Serengeti in Tanzania and suggests that the region is of critical importance for conservation efforts.


Elephants respond to calls from friends, not strangers
(6/5/2007) Elephants can distinguish between friendly calls and those of strangers reports a new study covered in ScienceNOW Daily News. In 2004 Caitlin O'Connell-Rodwell of Stanford University discovered that elephants use low-frequency, partially infrasonic ground vibrations to communicate with each other from miles away. The pachyderms press their trunks against the ground to detect the calls.


Illegal elephant ivory reaches the U.S.
(6/5/2007) Illegally poached elephant ivory is reaching markets in the United States reports a conservation group presenting at the wildlife trade conference meeting in The Hague. Care for the Wild International found 23,741 ivory items in surveys of stores in 15 American cities. The group said half the ivory pieces for sale in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu were imported illegally, while less than 10 percent of such goods on the east coast were illicit.


Sale of elephant ivory to Japan approved
(6/3/2007) The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) approved the sale of 60 tons of elephant ivory to Japan prior to the start of a 12-day wildlife conference in The Hague, Netherlands. The agency, which oversees the trade in wildlife products, said that South Africa, Botswana and Namibia can ivory from stocks gathered from elephants that have died naturally. The proceeds will go to a conservation fund.


Asian gangs fueling the illegal ivory trade
(5/13/2007) Asian-run organized crime syndicates based in Africa are behind the rising illegal trade in elephant ivory, reports TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and IUCN-The World Conservation Union.


Congo forest elephants declining from logging roads, illegal ivory
(4/2/2007) Fast-expanding logging roads in the Congo basin are becoming 'highways of death' for the fierce but elusive forest elephant, according to a new study published in the journal Public Library of Science. Logging roads both provide access to remote forest areas for ivory poachers and serve as conduits of advancing human settlement.


Elephant poaching for ivory accelerates
(2/26/2007) Thousands of African elephants are being killed for their ivory tusks, according to a new study led by a biologist from the University of Washington. In a paper published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Samuel Wasser, director of the University of Washington Center for Conservation Biology, shows that elephants are being slaughtered at the highest rate since the international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989.


Researchers find the missing link for elephant evolution
(11/1/2006) A pig-sized, tusked creature that roamed the earth some 27 million years ago represents a missing link between the oldest known relatives of elephants and the more recent group from which modern elephants descended.


New Chili Sauce Promotes Elephant conservation
(7/25/2006) First there was dolphin-safe tuna, then came fair-trade coffee. Now, hot sauce lovers can get into the act with a line of Elephant Pepper chili products that help protect elephants in southern Africa, and are available in the United States for the first time, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).


Elephants avoid hills
(7/24/2006) Using global-positioning system data corresponding to the movements of elephants across the African savannah, researchers have found that elephants exhibit strong tendencies to avoid significantly sloped terrain, and that such land features likely represent a key influence on elephant movements and land use. On the basis of calculations of energy use associated with traversing sloped terrain by such large animals, the researchers found that this behavior is likely related to the fact that even minor hills represent a considerable energy barrier for elephants because of the added calorie consumption required for such movements.


When elephants attack. Surviving an elephant charge in the Congo rainforest of Gabon
(6/26/2006) The elephant charges. The ground trembles. Hearts racing, we are now sprinting through the forest dodging vegetation as the elephant plows right through it. The problem with being chased by an elephant, aside from their obvious size advantage, is they can run faster than you. While wild elephants can be dangerous animals under the right circumstances, other creatures are responsible for more deaths in Africa. Topping the list is the hippo, whose penchant for capsizing canoes that come too close results in the dumping of passengers who often can't swim. Buffalo, crocodiles, and lions are directly responsible for more deaths and injuries.


Mysterious pygmy elephants being tracked across Borneo by WWF
(12/16/2005) The same satellite system used by the U.S. military to track vehicle convoys in Iraq is helping World Wildlife Fund shed light on the little-known world of pygmy elephants in Borneo.


Elephant drunk from fruit not likely, finds study
(12/5/2005) Dispelling years of anecdotes in travelogues, the popular press, and scholarly works, biologists from the University of Bristol argue that it is nearly impossible for elephants to become intoxicated from eating the fruit of the marula tree.


Spicy peppers keep elephants out of farmers' fields
(7/28/2005) Fiery chillies keep elephants out of crops and make a great sauce, say African entrepreneurs.


Mammals of the Forest Floor
(3/1/2005) As a result of the lack of abundant ground growth, the tropical rainforest supports few large-bodied herbivores and consequently an even smaller population of large predators. The majority of ground-dwelling animals are small to medium-sized creatures that feed on fallen fruits and seeds, saplings, and small prey.



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