top of page
Writer's pictureJennifer J

Happy World Elephant Day! 🐘

Today is World Elephant Day. 🐘


Happy World Elephant Day! 🐘


World Elephant Day is celebrated on the 12 of August every year. It was founded in 2011.



World Elephant Day is a day to celebrate these amazing animals.


Elephants are one of the most recognisable and unique animals in the world.


They are giants of the natural world: elephants can stand up to 24ft, making them one of the biggest animals in the world.



There are three different species of elephants - the African forest elephant, the African bush elephant, and the Asian elephant.


World Elephant day, is also a day to raise awareness about elephants. Sadly, the different species of elephants are critically endangered and endangered:


African forest elephants are critically endangered.


African bush elephants are endangered.


Asian elephants are endangered.


The main two types of elephants are African elephants and Asian elephants - Asian elephants are smaller than their African cousins.


The African elephant includes two different species of elephants - the African savanna elephant (endangered), and, the African forest elephant (critically endangered).


The Asian elephant includes four different species of elephants - the Sumatran elephant (critically endangered), the Sri Lankan elephant (endangered), the Bornean elephant (endangered), and the Indian elephant (endangered).


This means that all species of elephants alive today are either endangered or critically endangered.


Threats to elephants are - the destruction of their habitat by humans, and the illegal wildlife trade. Protecting elephants, and protecting their habitats, is important to saving them now and for the future.


Elephants are amazing and fascinating animals, the earth is their home too. Elephants are one of the most intelligent animals in the world - elephants show both intellectual and emotional intelligence, some of their intelligence involves being able to understand languages and use tools, they also show empathy and other emotions like grief.


They make you wonder - what else have we got to learn about elephants? What else can we learn about these wonderful animals? We often wonder 'can animal's understand us? Our language? Our societies?' But do we ask ourselves, 'can we understand animals? Their language? Their societies?'


What can we learn from amazing animals like elephants? Not sharing a common language doesn't mean we both don't share similarities- like experiencing the same emotions, having conciousness and intelligence, often humans think of their differences with animals, forgetting of the similarities we share with them.


We would learn more about elephants, the natural world and ourselves, if we paid more attention to them and observed them better. Animals like elephants do speak, but, do we listen?


Happy World Elephant Day! 🐘


Sources:



Comments


bottom of page