Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% over the last decade, and they could be mostly extinct by the end of the next decade. An estimated 100 African Elephants are killed each day by poachers seeking ivory, meat and body parts, leaving only 400,000 remaining. An insatiable lust for ivory products in the Asian market makes the illegal ivory trade extremely profitable, and has led to the slaughter of tens of thousands of African Elephants. Between 2010 and 2014, the price of Ivory in China tripled driving illicit poaching through the roof. If the elephants are to survive, the demand for ivory must be drastically reduced. As of 2011 the world is losing more elephants than the population can reproduce, threatening the future of African elephants across the continent. Bull elephants with big tusks are the main targets and their numbers have been disminished to less than half of the females. Female African Elephants have tusks and are also killed, which has a terrible effect on the stability of elephant societies, leaving and increasing number of orphaned baby elephants. As of 2016, there are still more African Elephants being killed for ivory than being born..Elephant populations continue to decline.
An Asian elephant, whose habitat ranges over 13 countries across Asia,is an endangered species with less than 40,000 remaining worldwide-less than a tenth of the African elephant population. Wild Asian elephants suffer severe habitat loss in some of the most densely human-populated regions on the planet. Their traditional territories and migration routes have been fragmented by development, highway and industrial monocrops such as palm oil and rubber tree plantations l, which has destroyed millions of hectares of forest ecosystems. With no access to their natural habitat, elephants are forced into deadly confrontations with humans where neither species win (SMH). Asian elephants are also poached for their ivory tusks, for their meat and body parts while baby elephants are captured from the wild and sold into the tourism industry. Worldwide Asian elephants are trained,traded and used for entertainment on tourist parks and circuses and also for illegal logging activities. These captive elephants are often mistreated abused and confined to sub standard facilities without adequate veterinarian care.
