Are elephants endangered?
There are currently about 600 000 African elephants (including both the Savannah- and the Forest subspecies) and approximately 40 000 Asian elephants roaming the earth. Of these, about 20% are bred in zoos and circuses. In 1979, there were 1.3 million African elephants. Within one decade, this number had dropped by 50% due to poaching. At this time, about 8 elephants were savagely slaughtered every hour for their valuable tusks. Now, however, ivory poaching is banned almost everywhere in the world. This has allowed the numbers to stabilise. Illegal poaching continues to threaten the numbers of animals the world over, but the legal implications have proved to be somewhat of a deterrent.
