Gabe Lopez

Professor Christensen
Nature Essay
May 16, 2015

The Tear of an Elephant

Extinction is a very powerful word. It is inherently the one thing all living beings strive to
overcome. This ongoing struggle has proven very trying for the elephants of Africa. According to
The Race to stop Africas Elephant Poachers an article featured in the Smithsonian Magazine,
where there were once millions of elephants populating an area that spanned over the Sahara
desert and the Sudanese savanna, there are now as little as one thousand remaining. The demand
for Ivory spanning back centuries created a market for the capturing and routine killing of these
animals. Efforts to reverse this major decrease in population have been made by wildlife
preservationists and park rangers, but to no significant results.
According to a Stanford Ecologist, Caitlyn OConnel-Rodwell elephants are not far off
from humans in their developmental and social structures. They maintain familial bonds and
seem to display complex emotional indicators. According to her logic, If we value Human
rights, we should also value animals that share the same sophistication that we do. The question
then becomes: Which side should we value more?
The reasoning behind such an active underground poaching scheme is the fact that one
large elephant tusk can sell for up to ten times the annual salary of a median income African

male. To put this in perspective, if the median American salary were to be estimated around fifty
thousand dollars, these tusks would sell individually for around five hundred thousand dollars.
This means that in their eyes they view the elephant as the equivalent of a million dollars per
animal.
Although some animals are poached and then left to rot, it is apparent that many of the
animals are harvested for their meat after they are poached. An amateur bush pilot by the name
of Gary Roberts recounts a memory finding a mass elephant killing. He states, Hungry
villagers had already swarmed over the corpses, stripping their meat. This had happened after
the tusks had been taken, and the poachers had likely fled. The elephants are then not only a
means of income, but of food as well.
The article 100,00 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just Three Years written in the
National Geographic Magazine outlines the ecological effect that elephants have within natural
African systems. The article states Elephants are vital to the web of life in Africa. Some of the
natural roles they play include: creating firebreaks, making waterholes and spreading seeds
through dung. Due to their large body mass they trample dead sagebrush and other dry plants,
which then acts as a natural fire barrier. They dig holes to find water that other animals are then
able to benefit from. Elephants eat various seeds and plants and then disperse them over
hundreds of miles.
It is clear that the effects of the elephants affect far more than just their own species. They
are an invaluable part of the chain of wildlife that makes up the African ecology. Their effect is
so great that the absence of them could end up harming those that poach them. Even if elephants
are used as a means of food, they would likely create higher depravation of food if they were to

become extinct. The pounds of food they create by spreading seeds and helping other wildlife
survive likely outweighs what they are worth in raw meat. There are many issues that contribute
to the problem of elephant poaching, but the main problem is that of deprivation and mass
poverty within African countries. Poaching needs to be stopped before these people inflict
damage that they are incapable of reversing.

Works cited

Scriber, Brad 100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in just Three Years, Landmark Analysis
Finds Web. National Geographic. 18 August, 2014.

Hammer, Joshua. The Race to Stop Africas Elephant Poachers Web. Smithsonian. 1 July
2014.