Save the Elephant Day
Saving an Elephant Day has been observed across the globe on April 16 yearly. The purpose is for raising awareness about the jam of elephants, whose populace has keep on declining quite noticeably.
SAVING THE ELEPHANT DAY HISTORY
Elephants are the biggest existing land animals which are spread across Asia and Africa. Recent studies estimated that there are just over 400,000 of elephants now from across the continent of Africa and even though the situation differed from countries, it can’t be denied that this giant mammal is declining on the continent-wide scale. The human activities like poaching for ivory stays the important reason for the said decline.
This saving the Elephant Day looks to change this disturbing trend by educating the people about the elephants and the mess they are facing, encouraging everybody to do their part in helping to rescue elephants from extinction.
The organizations across the globe have worked together in dealing some of the main threats elephant populations are facing. In 1989, the global commercial trade for ivory was barred. The CITES or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species secured the agreement among the member states to forbid the global ivory trade.
In year 2016, China, which has been the largest ivory market of the world, called for the outlaw of all ivory trades within the country. During 20th of December, 2018, the Ivory Act 2018 in U.K. received royal assent right after being passed through the British Parliament. This act can be extended to contain the narwhals, hippos, and walruses in the future.
While in year 2012, the saving an Elephant Day had been established in Thailand by Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, together with a Canadian filmmaker, Patricia Sims. The launch of the global initiative in 2012 saw the announcement of this “Return to the Forest,” the documentary movie narrated by the actor William Shatner in “Star Trek”.

TIMELINE OF SAVING THE ELEPHANT DAY
1989 – International Commercial Ivory Trade is Ban
The CITES or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species secured the agreement among the member states for banning the global ivory trade.
2012 – Day is Establish
The Elephant Reintroduction Foundation situated in Thailand makes the Save the Elephant Day.
2016 – China Ivory Sales Bans
China, the largest ivory market in the world, bans all ivory trades within the state.
2018 – U.K. Ivory Act
The Ivory Act in U.K. in December 20, 2018, takes the royal assent right after being passed on the British Parliament.
OBSERVING SAVING THE ELEPHANT DAY
1. Make awareness over the social media
Share helpful information about saving elephants on the social media platforms. Anyone can join sensitization campaigns for informing the general public regarding the need to assist save endangered elephant populace.
2. Do not buy ivory products
Help in discouraging the rustling of elephants through not purchasing any ivory merchandise. When there are no orders for elephant tusks, the poachers will not have any market.
3. Support organizations
Support the organizations that are dealing to stop the unlawful poaching and trading of elephant ivory plus some other wildlife products. Anyone can help through donating to the cause or through volunteering.

IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT ELEPHANTS
1. Elephants help in shaping the ecosystems. Elephants are important for supporting the ecosystems and are being considered as the central species for the task they play.
2. Species are recognized by their ears. African elephant ears are much bigger than the Asian elephants.
3. Elephant tusks are their teeth. The elephant tusks are inflated incisor teeth that initially appear when the elephants are two years old.
4. Many African elephants had been wiped out. Around 90% of the African elephants had been wiped out during the previous century because of the ivory trade.
5. Elephants have a very thick skin. The elephant’s skin is around 1.6 inches thickness in most places.
SAVING THE ELEPHANT DAY AS AN IMPORTANT DAY
1. It helps to end the unlawful wildlife elephant trade. Everyone had their chance to play their part in stopping this unlawful wildlife elephant trade. Everybody must support community scouts, wildlife trade, rangers, and sniffer dogs in monitoring networks to discourage poachers and to cut the demand from the buyers.
2. It sensitizes the community. We create awareness regarding the predicament of these elephants. We help to discourage also the public from buying stuffs made of ivory.
3. It raises funds. Through encouraging people to contribute to Save the Elephants campaign, we can help in protecting them. Fundraising events also organized in helping to protect the left over estimated 497,000 elephants from across the world.

REPRESENTATIVE VARIETIES OF ELEPHANTS
1. Elephas maximus – The Asian elephant is also named as the Asiatic elephant. This is the elephant species distributed throughout the Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, from west India, Nepal in north, Sumatra in south, and Borneo in east. This Asian elephant is described by their long trunk with the solo finger-like processing, small ears fold-up laterally, wrinkled grey skin, and large tusks for males. Their skin is smoother when compared with African elephants and can be depigmented on their trunk, neck or ears. The adult males averaging 4 tons (4.4 short tons; 3.9 long tons) in weight, while the females averaging 2.7 tons (3.0 short tons; 2.7 long tons).
2. Elephas maximus indicus – The Indian elephant is one of the three extant recognized types of Asian elephant, inhabitant from mainland Asia. The kind is smaller than African elephant species together with the convex back and with the highest point of body on its head. This elephant exhibits important sexual dimorphism with the male reaching the average shoulder height around 3.2 m and weighs 5,400 kg. While the female reaches the average shoulder height around 2.54 m and weighs 4,160 kg. It has the broader skull with the concave forehead, a large trunk and two big laterally folded ears. It has gray colored smooth skin, a long tail and four large legs.
3. African elephants – These are members from the genus Loxodonta including two living elephant types, the L. africana (African bush elephant) and the slighter L. cyclotis (African forest elephant). Both are considered social herbivores with gray skin, but will differ in the color and size of their tusks, also in the size and the shape of their skulls and ears. Loxodonta is one from the two existing genera of the Elephantidae family. The name pertains to the lozenge-formed enamel of the molar teeth. Fossil relics of Loxodonta species had been located in Africa, straddling from Late Miocene, from about 7-6 million years past and onwards.
4. Loxodonta africana – African bush elephant is also called African savanna elephant. It is one of those two existing African elephant species, also one of the three extant elephant types. It is the biggest living terrestrial animal that has bulls reaching a standard average shoulder height around 3.04–3.36 meters and with the body mass of around 5.2–6.9 tons, with the biggest recorded specimen having the shoulder height of around 3.96 meters and the body mass of around 10.4 tons. It is distributed from across 37 African states and inhabits forests, wetlands and agricultural lands and grasslands and woodlands. It is considered a social mammal, moving in herds settled with their offspring and cows. The adult bulls usually dwell live alone or with a small bachelor groups. These are herbivore, creepers, herbs, leaves, bark and feeding on grasses. The menstrual cycle will lasts for 3-4 months, and the females are pregnant to around 22 months, it is the longest gestation time of any mammal.
5. Borneo pygmy elephant – This Borneo elephant is also named as Bornean elephant is the subspecies of the Asian elephant that inhabited northeastern Borneo, in Malaysia and Indonesia. Its origin stays the topic of debate. This is an ultimate subspecific classification as an Elephas maximus borneensis waiting the thorough range-wide morphometric with the genetic study. During the 18th century, the Sulu Sultan was considered to have introduced the enslave elephants to Borneo that were released in the jungle. Comparison with the Borneo elephant populace to putative source population in DNA analysis indicated that the Borneo elephant is more likely taken from Sundaic stocks and are origin to Borneo, before of having been commenced by humans. The hereditary divergence of Borneo elephant warrants their identification as the separate evolutionarily essential unit.
6. Elephas or Elephantidae – is one of those two surviving genera of the elephant family, with one surviving kind, the Elephas maximus Asian elephant. Some extinct species had been identified as fitting in the genus, enlarging back to Pliocene era. The species of Elephas had the distinct bossing of parieto-occipital regions of the skull. Their premaxillae bones have the tusk is tapered.
7. Loxodonta cyclotis – This African forest elephant is one of those two living kinds of African elephant. This is inhabitant to humid tropical forest in Congo Basin and West Africa. This is the smallest from the three existing elephant species, reaching the shoulder height of about 2.4 m. As with the other African elephants, mutual sexes have straight and down-pointing tusks, that start to grow once they arrive at 1–3 years of age. The initial scientific description of this species was published during 1900. In the 20th century, the overhunting caused the sharp declined of their population, and in year 2013 it was predicted that about less than 30,000 elephants remained.
8. Elephas maximus maximus – This Sri Lankan elephant is a native of Sri Lanka and also one from the three identified subspecies of Asian elephants. It is the kind Asian elephant that initially expressed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758under binomial Elephas maximus. This Sri Lankan elephant populace is now largely constrained to dry zone in east, southeast and north of Sri Lanka. The elephants are now present in Yala National Park, Udawalawe National Park, Lunugamvehera National Park, Minneriya National Park and Wilpattu National Park, but also dwelled outside protected areas. It’s estimated that the country of Sri Lanka had the biggest density of elephants around Asia. Human-elephant clash is increasing because of conversion of elephant habitats to permanent cultivation and settlements.