Here’s Exactly How Climate Change Impacts The Largest Known Mammal on Land...

The African Bush Elephant is the largest of all living creatures on land today, with some individuals growing to weigh more than 6 tonnes...

African Bush Elephant (Loxodonta Africana Africana)

Elephants are the largest terrestrial mammals, and the home range of an African elephant can extend 3,000 miles. Wandering herds can include up to 70 elephants, and these big guys have big appetites. In normal conditions, elephants are essentially the gardeners of Africa’s Sahara and Namib deserts. Elephants will strip down trees to feed on and rip apart limbs for use as tools, transforming the forest into shrublands and creating environments adaptable to a wider variety of smaller life. Their heavy hoofs crush long grass so that the shorter grass preferred by wildebeest and other grazers can grow.

Elephants offer manure for plants to grow and spread the seeds themselves — and they even bring water to the desert by digging watering holes. But global warming and unsettling precipitation patterns are jeopardizing the capacity of elephants to fulfill these duties. An investigation into droughts at the border of Kenya and Tanzania in 2007 and 2009 both saw the population of large mammals including elephants collapse. Africa is no stranger to droughts, but climate change has brought about a greater uptick in dry precipitation patterns. It also brings invasive species of plants with it. At our current pace, it’s impossible to know if it will be poachers or weather that kills elephants first.

Elephants, one of the biggest animals, reach 3m tall and weigh between 4,000 -7,500kg, and are constantly eating..

Today, although slightly recovering in certain areas, African Bush Elephant populations are still threatened from increasing levels of illegal poaching and habitat destruction. Deforestation in the African Bush Elephant’s territory means that the African Bush Elephants lose both their food and shelter making them more vulnerable in the wild. African Bush Elephants are also constantly threatened by poachers hunting the Elephants for their ivory tusks.

The African Bush Elephants are now listed as an Endangered species.