Madelaine Stannard advocates for the protection of a gentle giant on World Elephant Day.
Where there are animals, and where there are humans, undoubtedly there is conflict and exploitation. I often think it’s inevitable, given humanity’s indomitable clutch on practically every ecosystem. We are one of Earth’s most successful species. When considering the human race from a biological standpoint, we do not just fill and transmogrify and exploit ecosystems; we are ecosystems. Other times, I think differently. I think that conflict doesn’t just arise because we exist. Conflict arises with living things because where there are animals - the purest, most innocent, the vulnerable - like an unflattering mirror, their existence brings out the very worst in mankind, brings to light everything our species would rather hide.
That’s exactly what Graydon Carter, of Vanity Fair, meant when he said: “We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest human traits: empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behaviour.”
A herd of African elephants, with a young calf protected by older relatives, is the epitome of strength and empathy. Image Credit: Pixabay, polyfish.
The elephant, and all its subspecies, is one of the organisms most devastated, most exploited, and most eradicated by humans. They are also some of the most intelligent, empathic, and kind animals to ever walk the planet. In a rare example of burial behaviour, Asian elephants were observed ritually burying their deceased calves, with herd members both young and old involved in the practice. In times of distress and fear, elephants use touch and vocalisations to offer comfort. Matriarchs and older herd members even display incredible acts of altruism in which they risk their lives to help calves cross dangerous waters.
This kindness is not to say that elephants are powerless. Perhaps the reason the elephant is so ardently admired across countries and cultures is not entirely because of its innate strength of body, but also strength of mind. The elephant, in its hulking weight, knows when to bend, but also when to snap. A mother will protect its calf, a bull will protect its life, and can he really be blamed?
Why is it, when we have something so revered, so mind blowingly miraculous in our hands, that we are not satisfied to appreciate from afar, but must conquer and claim?
Since 1980, elephant populations have collapsed at unprecedented rates. Once upon a time, more than one million of these Proboscideans roamed African plains and forests. Now, just over four-hundred thousand remain. And in Asia, where four subspecies of elephant inhabit dense jungle, it’s estimated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that numbers have tragically halved in the last century.
Continents apart, the three species of elephant (African bush, African forest, and Asian), are both genetically and anatomically different, but a common thread (beyond their years of shared evolution prior to their divergence) ties them together. Their numbers are threatened by the ivory trade, where international crime syndicates profit from poaching elephants for their ivory tusks, as well as conflict with humans exacerbated by habitat loss and urbanisation. Elephants are also vulnerable to the forestry and tourism industries, where they are smuggled across borders and exploited in captivity for both entertainment and physical labour.
Seven years ago, a disturbing piece of footage went global. Filmed in Zimbabwe, horrified viewers watched as five juvenile elephants were drugged and hauled onto trucks, while desperate family members were frightened away as they came to their aid. Young enough to still need milk from their mothers, these elephants, it is believed, were sold to Chinese zoos. The unnamed Chinese buyer was also linked to an equally disturbing case the previous year, in which eleven wild and emaciated hyenas were discovered stressed and dehydrated at Harare airport.
While the trade of live elephants is legal under specific circumstances, such as if the sale occurs to benefit conservation in the home country, a startling lack of multilateral criteria on “acceptable” destinations for elephants means significant data is missing on where commodified animals end up, and in what state.
Many cultures are reliant on elephants to boost tourist industries, but the ethics of this practice are dubious. Image Credits: pexels, Virendra Singh,Syam Krishnan
Poaching, to supply a different kind of trade, is the cruelest of things. In this barbaric practice, it is estimated that fifty-five African elephants are poached every day. Every year, more than twenty-thousand gentle giants are killed and stripped of their tusks, all to supply the market. Behind every ivory trinket is the carcass of one of Earth’s most spectacular species, and often an entire herd mourning a substantial loss.
As public attention has shifted and a glaring spotlight shone on the ivory trade, many domestic markets in Asia have closed down. As importers of ivory for ornaments and Eastern medicinal products, many markets have instead been displaced into neighbouring countries or even into African nations where ivory can be processed without detection in transit by border enforcement agencies. China, for instance, introduced a trade ban in 2018, effectively closing its legal market. Whilst a significant step in the right direction, investigation reveals that ivory buying is still at large in regional locations as opposed to major cities where illicit activity can be more easily uncovered. Trade of goods and commodities derived from animals is driven underground by the introduction of market bans, displacing buying to other countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, raising a difficult question - is it actually detrimental to ban trade entirely?
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