International Elephant Day
Elephants are the world’s largest land animals who are very intelligent and family orientated mammals. Elephants are matriarchal (living in female-led groups) and live in multigenerational herds, the matriarch tends to be the biggest and eldest on of the heard. Male elephants are called bulls and usually roam on their own or in small all-male herds.
International Elephant Day began in 2011 and was created by Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims and Michael Clarke in order to raise awareness for these beautiful mammals.
World Elephant Day is a brilliant opportunity for everyone to get together to find ways to reduce conflict between humans and elephants. These could include land development that minimises habitat destruction or electric fences to keep elephants away from farms, and changes in local attitudes.
International elephant day was created in order to draw attention to the predicament the elephants have found themselves in due to the ivory trade.
In China the demand and price for ivory can often be more expensive than gold and the combination of extreme poverty in Africa means that elephants become an easy target to make a lot of profit on the international market.
Another threat to their existence is deforestation as elephants need hundreds of pounds of food per day making it easier for poachers to find where they will be, and they are being deprived of the nutrient they need in order to survive and repopulate.
A hundred years ago there were thought to be 12 million elephants in the wild whereas now the estimated figure is as low as 400,000 and 20,000 per year being killed by poachers.
Here at Mollie & Fred we have a couple of elephant gifts which would make an elephant enthusiasts day!
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