The main contributor to human-elephant conflict is not the animal’s iconic tusks, but their voracious appetite. African elephants are the largest land mammals on Earth. In one day, they consume up to 100 kilograms of food and 189 litres of water. African elephants require an abundance of vegetation and space of their own. When they live within range of residential and agricultural areas, elephants enter subsistence farms where they can wipe out entire crops. In response to this crop raiding, people harm or kill the animals.
While their appetite is known to be destructive to humans, it’s vital to the functioning of the savannah. Elephants are considered ecosystem engineers as they build and shape the environment with their eating habits. When riverbeds run dry, they use their trunks to dig up watering holes which support other animals. The shrubs and vegetation they devour clears paths for smaller animals to navigate, and uprooting trees or eating saplings makes way for wildlife to pass through the plains. African elephants are a keystone species. Without them, the wild as we know it would cease to exist.
Up Next in Season 1
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Sloths
The sloths of the Costa Rican rainforests have mastered the art of slow living. The arboreal mammals sleep for 10 to 12 hours a day, and spend up to 90% of their time hanging upside-down from the trees. They have everything they need up there, surviving off fruit, shoots, and leaves.
Known for th... -
The Panda Masuie Release Project
Compassionate handlers at the Wild Is Life Zimbabwe Elephant Nursery in Harare are committed to rescuing elephant orphans. Under their care, calves receive the nurturing they need to begin life again in the wild at a sanctuary close to Victoria Falls.
The WIL-ZEN rewilding facility is situated at... -
Orangutans
Unlike other great apes, orangutans prefer solitude. You won’t find them in groups, but rather swinging through the trees of Sumatra and Borneo on their own, supported by their arms that span over two metres. Content with their own company, they spend their days foraging for fruit or resting in t...
