World Elephant Day is an annual celebration dedicated to the preservation and conservation of Wild Elephants around the world. Every year 12th August is celebrated as World Elephant Day. The Foundation was formally established and sponsored by Patricia Sims, and the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation on August 12, 2012 though it was launched in the year 2011 by Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims and Michael Clark of Canazwest Pictures. Till now, Patricia Sims has been guiding and managing the World Elephant Day, which now has more than 65 conservation organizations and other individuals worldwide.
Why World Elephant Day is celebrated?
World Elephant Day was set up to bring elephants together throughout the world. It’s a day to celebrate elephants, to raise awareness of their vital challenges, and to promote constructive ways to ensure their sustainability. It is a day to urge people and organizations to celebrate this day with a goal to develop activities and outreach related to their efforts to save elephants.
Goal of World Elephant Day
The aim of World Elephant Day is to crate awareness about an urgent plight of Asian and African elephants also to share the information and constructive approaches for a better care, prevention and management of the wild and captive elephants.
Increased poaching, habitat loss, human-elephant conflict, and mistreatment in captivity are just some of the threats to both African and Asian elephants. Many elephant conservation groups around the world are focused on moving for improved security of wild elephants, strengthening compliance strategies to deter illicit poaching and ivory trafficking, protecting elephant populations, enhancing the care of captured elephants and, where possible, reintroducing captured elephants into existing, safe sanctuaries are on priorities.
Habitat loss is a main hazard to the elephant population of the world as they take away hundreds pounds of food every day which make it harder for them to raise and also it make easier for poachers to track. Sadly, scientists agree that habitat destruction is the biggest cause for elephant extinction in the wilderness. A century ago the counting in the wild is more than 12 million but today , the number may be as small as 400,000, with poachers killing as many as 20,000 a year.
Facts about Elephants
- An elephant’s mean lifespan ranges from 50 to 70 years. Male African elephants can weigh between 4,000 and 7,500 kg and exceed 3 m in tallness. But somewhat Asian elephants are smaller with 2.7 m high and weigh 3,000–6,000 kg.
- There are two elephant species: African and Asian species- African elephant ears are considerably larger than their cousins and are described like the forming the continent of Africa, while the ears of Asian elephants are shaped like the Indian subcontinent.
- There are several uses for elephant tusks like a tool to dig for food or water and to bark trees; as a weapon to fight with rivals; and as an aid to courtship – the greater its tusks, the more attractive a male elephant can look for a female.
- Elephants develop their own sun-scream as these giant elephants dig into mud to cover their skin from sunstroke.
- It is amazing that within 20 minutes of birth Elephant Calves can stand and are able to walk in 1 hour. They will stay up with the group after two days. This amazing technique of survival enables stocks of elephants to move on and find food and water and survive.
It is a day to experience the elephants living in a sustainable and non-exploitable environment where elephants can live in thrive care and under protection. On World Elephant Day share knowledge and awareness with endorse strategies for the better care of wild and captive elephants.
Swikriti Dandotia
