Home
1. Who We Are
  1. WWF Offices & Associates
    - Tanzania

Factsheet: African Elephant

Posted on 13 April 2007

A herd of elephants on the move in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. The female in the middle of the herd has exceptionally long tusks.

Download

African Elephant Factsheet 854 KB pdf

African elephants are the largest living land animals. Once numbering millions across the African continent, their populations had been decimated by the mid-1980s by systematic poaching. The status of the species now varies greatly across Africa. Some populations remain endangered due to poaching for meat and ivory, habitat loss, and conflict with humans, while others are secure and expanding.

African elephants are 'flagship' species for their habitats - that is, charismatic representatives of the biodiversity within the complex ecosystems they inhabit. Because these large animals need a lot of space to survive, their conservation will help maintain biological diversity and ecological integrity over extensive areas and so help many other species.

WWF's work
In 2000, WWF launched a new African Elephant Programme. With 40 years of experience in elephant conservation, WWF’s current programme aims to:

increase protection and management of elephants in Africa
build capacity within elephant range countries to manage and protect mitigate conflict between humans and elephants
control the illegal trade in elephant products.

Comments

jessica

January 21, 2009 - 11:24

i think that it is very crawl that pepole, killed elephants for ivy but i know u will help and make shore that that will not happen eny more

anthony , heaven, and robin

December 2, 2008 - 17:58

this website needs more info because we have to do reports on the african elephant

Sparkle

June 18, 2008 - 18:12

There should be more info about elephant poaching. Thanks!!!!!!

Jocelyn Panfilo

June 18, 2008 - 18:09

I think there has to be laws about not poaching elephants!

Alejandra Reyes

May 23, 2008 - 17:21

en cuanto al manejo de las poblaciones de elefantes en África debe considerarse las emisiones de extraccion de hidrocarburos y la contaminacion generada por el derramamiento de crudo en particular en paises como Nigeria.

twirlgirl

April 18, 2008 - 00:13

Great site but not enough info. you need to put more about the description and the habbatit.

georgia smith

April 18, 2008 - 00:07

Great site! I got so much info. Put more info sop that more poeple will use it!

katerine

April 10, 2008 - 01:45

i like elephants they are so cute so pleased help them.

and how their habitat is destroy?? and how can we help them to the habitat don't be destroy???

ashley

April 9, 2008 - 21:53

i am doing an ecosytem project about african elephants and you really dont have enough info please add more

Hayley T

April 7, 2008 - 21:36

Elephants are very peaceful, and would never try to hurt people. But i am doing a factfile about elephants but on these two paragraphs it say nothink about breeding. Please could you add that in.

Thank you very much.

xx