Elephant Stories

For Chinese tourists traveling internationally, ivory demand has increased. WWF worked to combat that trend via a social media campaign focused on reaching travelers through Chinese social platforms.

In 1930, as many as 10 million wild elephants roamed huge swaths of the African continent. But decades of poaching and conflict have since decimated African elephant populations.

More than 100,000 Asian elephants may have existed at the beginning of the 20th century, roaming from the Persian Gulf to India and China. But their numbers have dropped in the past three generations.

WWF spoke with Ming Yao, a member of WWF’s wildlife conservation team who has worked closely with ivory demand reduction projects, to learn more about her point of view on China’s ivory ban and how it has influenced consumer behavior in her country.

Elephants, found in both Africa and Asia, are vital to maintaining the rich biodiversity of the ecosystems that they share with other species. Here's a snapshot of what you should know about them.

Thanks to satellite collars, 60 elephants will be monitored for better protection against poaching in one of the last great African wildernesses, Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve.

In 2016, the US government imposed a “near-total ban” on imports, exports, and domestic trade of African elephant ivory. The findings led to recommendations that could help the US regulate the trade.

As 2017 comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to highlight some of our biggest conservation successes of the year. And we couldn’t have done it without your support.

By the end of December, it will be illegal to sell or buy elephant ivory in China. But will the new and critical ban succeed in a country that’s home to the largest legal ivory market in the world?

Wildlife roam large areas and do not recognize human-imposed boundaries. They need help doing things like crossing busy roads. This incredible elephant encounter emphasized how important movement corridors are for wildlife. 

Amid a dire poaching crisis, wild Asian elephants in Myanmar received swift and essential aid from thousands of WWF supporters committed to protecting this iconic species. More than 3,000 people donated $263,211 in less than four weeks to fund an emergency action plan to train rangers and get boots on the ground to fight wildlife crime.

In a disturbing and growing new trend, Asian elephants of all ages are being slaughtered in Myanmar for their skin and other body parts. WWF is launching an emergency action plan to train, equip, and deploy 10 anti-poaching teams to the most vulnerable areas, and implementing a thorough plan to stop the slaughter. 

Human-wildlife conflict is a major issue for many poor people who live near forests in rural areas of Nepal. That’s one of the reasons why WWF and other partners in conservation launched the Hariyo Ban (Green Forest) program to find lasting solutions that protect people’s lives, livestock and crops and prevent the retaliatory killing of wildlife. 

A new report by WWF reveals that World Heritage sites are especially vulnerable to illegal harvesting of species listed by CITES, including tigers and African elephants.

In the first project of its kind in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve, WWF—along with the Kenyan Wildlife Service and Narok County Council—is now collaring elephants.

WWF is partnering with the Kenyan Wildlife Service and Narok County Council to collar matriarch elephants in the Maasai Mara reserve to track them as they move inside and outside of the reserve, in order to better understand how to mitigate human wildlife conflict and to maintain vital wildlife corridors.

Today, we celebrate another big win for elephant conservation with China’s game-changing decision to end domestic ivory trade by 2017. The new regulations come as part of the government’s efforts to reduce demand for elephant ivory and help end the global elephant poaching crisis.

The past year has shown us that when we work together, we can challenge the threats to nature and help ensure its ability to provide—for the sake of every living thing. Take a look at 2016 in review.

WWF’s African Elephant Program funded a research project that used techniques from economics and statistics to better understand the value of elephant conservation to local economies in Africa.

Selous Game Reserve, one of Africa’s oldest reserves and Tanzania’s largest protected area, holds vast potential, but it also faces a number of threats. By bringing together governments, local communities, industry and civil society groups, we can transform Selous into a success story.

During the world’s largest ever wildlife trade meeting—the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)—governments united behind a series of tough decisions to provide greater protection to a host of threatened species and bolster efforts to tackle soaring levels of poaching and wildlife trafficking.

Africa’s elephant population has crashed by an estimated 111,000 in the past decade primarily due to poaching, according to the IUCN’s African Elephant Status Report.

One of the best tools we have for fighting the illegal wildlife trade that threatens many of the world’s most endangered species is CITES—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Rampant ivory poaching has reduced the elephant population in Tanzania’s oldest and largest protected area by 90 percent in fewer than 40 years. WWF is sounding the alarm for urgent action in combating wildlife crime in the reserve.