Elephant facts and conservation issues

Hi all

This post will be about elephant facts and a couple of elephant conservation issues, I will post further issues next week.

Elephant facts:

1. Elephants can spend upto 16 hours a day eating
2. They are herbivores, eating leaves, plants and twigs
3. The trunk is used to pick up food and water which is then put into the mouth
4. Elephants have no natural predators. Though carnivores such as lions may prey on younger, weak, old vulnerable elephants
5. Male elephants are called bulls and females are called cow. Young elephants are called calves
6. They are the biggest land animal
7. Wild elephants are found in Africa and Asia

Poaching:

Poaching and hunting elephants for their tusks has been happening for centuries, the ivory is made into trinkets and souvenirs. Poaching may be causing an imbalance between the sexes, as males are killed for their tusks leaving only the females behind.

This website gives some good information on recent poaching incident: http://www.bloodyivory.org/

Poaching is not only for ivory, but for meat, hide, medicinal use and poaching for the entertainment industry. This involves taking elephants from the wild and using them for entertainment such as circuses.

Another interesting website: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iv-drip/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-elephant-poaching-8983276.html

Human elephant conflict:

In recent years conflict between humans and elephants has been increasing. With human encroaching on land that elephants have used as migration routes for centuries.

This conflict usually happens when elephants end up on farmers land, sadly some farmers shoot these animals. Many deterrents have been trialed to see if they can deter elephants from entering farm land and destroying/eating the crops. Such deterrents include bees or sounds of bees, chilies and lights.

There are many interesting articles surrounding this subject: 
http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/endangered_species/elephants/human_elephant_conflict.cfm
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/animals/asian-elephants/projects/sri-lankan-human-elephant-conflict/