Why does elephant have tusks

In other words, stop the poachers on the ground with more anti-poaching patrols, increased security around protected areas, and strong judicial action against convicted poachers and traffickers. Stop wildlife traffickers in their tracks with improved security at ports of entry, better training of customs and border agents, and increased law enforcement coordination between countries.

And stop the demand with very visible, very targeted, and very large public awareness campaigns in consumer nations, especially in Asia, where the greatest demand for ivory stems. For its part, AWF is addressing all three of these areas, and no more so than on the ground, where it is partnering with a variety of groups to bolster security around vulnerable elephant populations.

In those areas where AWF and its partners are working, elephant poaching has been drastically reduced, in some places to zero. In addition, AWF is hosting workshops for local magistrates, lawyers, customs and border agents, revenue authorities, local police, and local communities who are learning for the first time about the breadth of the elephant crisis and the new wildlife laws designed to combat it.

In Cameroon, where in hundreds of elephants were slaughtered en masse inside a national park on the border, AWF is now working with the national park authority to provide anti-poaching patrols and faunal surveys in Faro National Park. Many governments are stepping up to the fight and AWF is ready to assist them. Sign up for our newsletter. Stay Connected. Going Tuskless. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.

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Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Courtesy of Joyce Poole Sometime in the distant past, well before humans walked the Earth, the ancestors of modern-day elephants evolved their iconic tusks. How a civil war caused elephants to lose their tusks Social conflict and the decline of wildlife are often closely linked, the authors of the Science study write. The researchers have to tranquilize elephants in order to collect their DNA. Should all elephants ditch their tusks?

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Animals Whales eat three times more than previously thought. Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big. The soft wood of some trees such as the baobab is also eaten.

Such tusking sometimes destroys the whole tree. Elephants can give birth at any time of the year if food is plentiful all year round. In areas where food is scarce during dry seasons, most births occur during rainy seasons.

This ensures that the mother has plenty to eat while she is suckling her calf. Females between 14 - 45 years may give birth to calves approximately every four years with the mean interbirth intervals increasing to five years by age 52 and six years by age Interbirth intervals of up to 13 years may occur depending upon habitat conditions and population densities.

The mean calving interval varies from population to population, with high density populations or otherwise nutritionally stressed populations exhibiting longer intervals between births. After 22 months growing inside its mother's womb, a newborn baby elephant weighs more than the average adult human being. Female calves weigh kg - lb. Males are heavier and weigh up to kg lb.

An adult bull savanna elephant can have a shoulder height of 3. Females are smaller, weighing up to 3, Kg 7, lb. Elephants are unusual among mammals in that they continue to grow throughout their life, although their rate of growth slows after they reach sexual maturity.

Elephant home ranges vary from population to population and habitat to habitat. Individual home ranges vary from 15 to 3, square kilometers , square miles.

Elephants are not territorial although they utilize specific home areas during particular times of the year. Elephants communicate with each other in many ways and with all their senses.

They rely less on their eyes than humans do but visual signals are important and the position of their ears and trunks show what mood they are in. Their sense of smell can tell them something about another elephant's health or sexual condition.

Touch can also be used to convey some information. However, the main way an elephant communicates deliberately is by sound. Elephant vocalizations range from high-pitched squeaks to deep rumbles, two-thirds of which are emitted at a frequency too low for the human ear to detect. Such low frequency calls may be heard by other elephants at distances of at least eight kilometers. Recent studies also show that foot stomping and low rumbling emitted by elephants generate seismic waves in the ground that can travel nearly 20 miles along the surface of the Earth.

Elephants may be able to sense these vibrations through their feet and interpret them as warning signals of a distant danger. They may therefore be communicating at much farther distances than previously thought. Elephants do have remarkable memories. In the wild, elephants appear to remember for years the relationships with dozens, perhaps hundreds of other elephants, some of whom they may see only occasionally.