Asian elephants or Elephas maximus are smaller than African elephants and have smaller ears.
Asian Elephants became enlisted on the endangered list because people poach them for meat, ivory, and leather which leads to less males than females and fewer offspring, habitat fragmentation, being seen as pest in agricultural areas, land decrease, and held in captivity for working animals. They first become enlisted in 1975 and have remained on the list ever since.
Asian elephants use to live in west Asia along the Iranian coast into parts of Indian, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo, and China as far as the Yangtze-Kiang. But now asian elephants are extinct in West Asia, Java, and most of China.
Threats to the Asian elephants are habitat loss, palm oil plantations, degradation, and fragmentation, which is mostly because of human population growing and taking more land. It also leads to conflicting problems between humans and elephants, for example there is often strong political pressure on wildlife authorities to eliminate elephants near populated regions.
Current population- 41,410–52,345
The current status of asian elephants are declining and have been for some time because of poachers wanting their meat, tusk, and skin, habitat destruction, and the uneven ratio of male to female elephants. But there still is hope, in Western Ghats, India there has been a population increase noticed because of the conservation of habitat that is occurring.
The overall effectiveness in the ecosystem of an asian elephant is they create grasslands and salt licks (a place where animals lick salt from the ground) in order to make other animals lives easier to survive in their environment. They also create water holes by digging in dry river beds.
Asian elephant's play a very important role throughout the savannah, thick jungle, and tropical forest because they created things for other animals as stated above. They have little to no predators, but when they are young they somethings are hunted by tigers. Asian elephants are herbivores so they don't consume any other animal. They are very social and live in large herds of 10 for most of their life. Elephants have a migration route to mate with males which hasn't changed in centuries.
Many things have been done to protect asian elephants such as protected forest, compensation for crop damage or deaths caused by elephants, ivory ban and prohibition of trade, habitat preservation, devising ways for people and elephants to co-exist together, and successful zoo breeding programs around the world. One of the most successful methods of conserving asian elephants are to view them as a sustainable resources. Asian elephants also have a great religious significance, which has contributed significantly to their conservation.
Works Cited
"Asian Elephant." Smithsonian's National Zoo. Smithsonian National Zoo, 08 Sept. 2016. Web. 08 Jan. 2017. <https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/asian-elephant>.
"EDGE of Existence." EDGE of Existence. ZSL, n.d. Web. 08 Jan. 2017. <http://www.edgeofexistence.org/mammals/species_info.php?id=12>.
"Elephas Maximus ." Elephas Maximus (Asian Elephant, Indian Elephant). Red List, n.d. Web. 08 Jan. 2017. <http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/7140/0>.
Nikela Staff/Volunteer. "How the African Elephant Is Important to Its Ecosystem." Nikela: Helping People save Wildlife. Nikela, 28 July 2015. Web. 08 Jan. 2017. <http://www.nikela.org/how-the-african-elephant-is-important-to-its-ecosystem/>.
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