Elephants are the world’s largest mammals (a baby can weigh 19 stones!) yet all three species are endangered, despite a ban on poaching. A trophy import ban is imminent.
Elephants don’t see well (they communicate by low vibrations and use their trunks to drink water, breathe while swimming and forage for food. They keep cool by taking dust baths, and wallowing in mud.
- Elephant Crisis Fund says issues of elephant/human conflict are more due to lack of natural habitats and poor land-use planning, and is using simple ideas in Botswana like ‘smelly elephant repellent’, watchtowers (for farmers to alert villagers) and sturdy non-electric fences (reduce crop raids by 90%).
- Elephant-friendly tea plantations promise not to poison elephants, farm organically and avoid electric fencing, razor wire and deep narrow ditches (difficult for baby elephants to cross).
Don’t Support Zoos
Bull elephants are solitary, but wild herds (headed by the matriarch) roam hundreds of miles, which is why it’s unkind to keep them in zoos. Report concerns of captive animals at Born Free.
There are around 51 captive elephants in UK zoos. In the wild they would roam 800 to 11,000 square kilometres (zoo space is 10,000 to 140,000 times less, leading to foot and muscular-skeletal problems, mental illness and loneliness).
Born Free and Freedom for Animals both want elephant conservation to happen in their natural countries in wildlife sanctuaries. There are plenty of efforts going on, we don’t need children to visit bored elephants for 20 seconds, to ‘educate’.
Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna were given permission to film a little elephant called Pole Pole in Kenya, where she was ‘bashing herself against a wall’ in distress, while waiting to be ‘gifted to London zoo’.
She became friends with them. But despite efforts, they could not prevent her being transported to England.
Some years later, they visited the stressed lonely elephant at London zoo. She clearly remembered them, stretching her trunk out to greet them. Feeling terrible they were unable to help, they launched a campaign to at least send her to another zoo, to be with other elephants.
But kept in a crate for several hours, she collapsed and was put to sleep, while just a teenager. Determined her life would not be in vain, they launched Born Free (now headed up by their son Will Travers), where you report concerns of captive animals.
Born Free recently raised concerns over import of one elephant to the UK (he’s already lived in a few zoos in his short life). Recently many elephant calves have died at British zoos, the charity says that infant mortality and stillbirths are always higher in captive areas.
In Denmark, a zoo recently put to sleep two elephants, who were taken from the wild and lived at the zoo since 1985. The second elephant was euthanised (she had arthritis) knowing that she would be alone.
Two other elephants that had arrived with them, have also been put to sleep. The zoo has acknowledged that issues with health and mental health can occur for captive elephants, and are no longer to keep elephants in captivity.
In the wild, female juvenile elephants witness mothering skills in large herds, taking care of other herds. The last calf born at Twycross Zoo has never witnessed an elephant birth.
Don’t visit Animal Circuses Abroad
Although animal circuses are now banned in England, worldwide elephants are forced to stand on hind legs to perform tricks or ‘play football’.
Support Elephant Conservation Charities
Responsible Travel has a list of genuine elephant sanctuaries and those to avoid (some called ‘sanctuaries’ are in their words ‘awful places’ where elephants are forced to perform tricks and mahouts use hooks).
Then you can choose to donate (anonymously, if preferred) to authentic conservation charities.
Another great way to help is to sign up to easyfundraising. Then each time you shop from one of thousands of partners (from books to train tickets to insurance), the charity of your choice receives a portion of profits, so it doesn’t even cost you anything. Loyalty points are not affected.
A few authentic elephant sanctuaries are:
- Elephant Nature Park was founded by an amazing (tiny) woman, and cares for over 100 elephants, many rescued from begging, rides and circus shows – some are blind, orphaned, senior and disabled.
- Boon Lott Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand) was named in honour of the baby elephant rescued by the founder. She married a local, and her elephant ‘bridesmaids’ smothered her dress in mud, with their trunks!
- Sheldrick Wildlife Trust protects elephants from poachers, and creates sanctuaries for elephants and their calves. It has successfully raised over 260 orphaned elephants, and also safeguards wilderness area.
What To Do with Old Ivory?
Ivory is now illegal (piano keys are not longer made with it). You can buy tagua nut buttons etc (also known as vegetable ivory).
But even selling second-ivory creates a market for illegal poaching. By law, you can only now give ivory as a gift or lend without payment (though who would want it, as anyone’s guess).
You can’t burn ivory, as it’s too hard. IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) wants the government to create its own disposal system, so ivory can be securely surrendered, to stop it re-entering the marketplace.
This includes ivory from other animals (walrus, hippos, warthogs, sperm whales and narwhals) that is made into ornaments, carvings, jewellery and walking sticks.
Avoid Palm Oil
Just like for orangutans and rhinos, avoiding palm oil (found in junk food and bar soaps labelled with sodium palmate) helps to protect habitats of Asian elephants. All Flora vegan butters are free from palm oil.
Their forest homes have been decimated, to provide cheap oil that is shipped thousands of miles, because companies won’t pay extra for local rapeseed oil, which would support our farmers.
If you cook proper food with real ingredients, you don’t need palm oil in your diet at all (it’s a saturated fat).
Choose Recycled Paper & Wood Items
Obviously anything made from wood comes from trees, and a lot of wood is from abroad. So protect habitats for all species, try to choose recycled or reclaimed where possible (or tree-free). Read our posts on eco-friendly:
Photo Albums Made from Elephant Dung!
Here’s a lovely unique way to display your photos. Paper High sells these beautiful photo albums with a difference. They are made from a blend of recycled paper and elephant dung!
So each album has unique flecks, depending on what your elephant friend ate that day!
These albums have a serious side. Abroad, wild elephants are often harmed, due to trampling on crops. So by paying local villagers to collect the dung, they see elephants as income opportunities (and friends) rather than competing for food.
And as the average elephant eats around the same as us chomping down 300 cans of baked beans each day, that’s a lot of dung!
You are also helping to provide income for a mostly female team of artisans in Sri Lanka who produce the beautiful albums, each one filled with 35 pages of handmade paddy husk paper (a by-product of the rice-milling industry).
It’s acid-free and interweaved with tissue paper, to protect and preserve your memories). Read more on greener photography.
You can also buy office accessories like notebooks made from elephant dung paper:
Also in more muted designs:
And beautiful greetings cards, with brass elephant motifs:
Drink Gin, Save Elephants!
Sold in recycled glass bottles with natural corks, Elephant Gin offers a range of tipples alongside coffee liqueur and ready-to-drink negroni.
Corks are too dense to recycle and are choking hazards, so send off in bulk to Recorked, if your local off license does not collect.
Its current financial situation means the company can only support smaller projects, so please support this company over big brands, to fund its wonderful work.
Check medication before drinking tonic water (contains quinine). Also avoid tonic water for pregnancy/nursing (but hopefully you won’t be drinking gin anyway).
