Wild Baby Elephant!

One of my favorite things to do on safari is to just simply sit with a herd of elephants. Watching their social structure is very interesting and one can’t wonder what the future of the largest land mammal on earth will be…
African elephants are usually divided into the savannah and the forest elephants.
They rage from being highly protected in eastern Africa to areas in southern Africa where they can be legally hunted and are also “culled” meaning killed to try to keep their numbers manageable given the amount of land they use. This is controversial as some wildlife groups would prefer to see them transported to lower population areas as hunting leads to abandoned calves which at times can grow up to become rogue elephants killing the endangered rhinos. Elephants are also illegally poached for their ivory tusks.
Recent reports show a huge drop in populations of forest elephants in the Congo in central Africa.
There are approx 500,000+/- African elephants in the wild. Elephants, like humans and apes, have the ability to recognize themselves in a mirror and are very intelligent.
The elephants trunk filled with thousands and thousands of muscles can be gentle enough to choose between different blades of grass or powerful enough to uproot a tree. Elephants will attack and kill humans both in the wild and in captivity.
For ways to help the elephant:

African Wildlife Foundation:
http://www.awf.org...

Amboseli Trusts for Elephants:
http://www.elephanttrust.org...

Sheldrick’s orphan elephants & rhinos
http://www.daphnesheldrick.com...

IUCN Elephant page:
http://data.iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/afesg/....

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