Asia and Africa — where the elephants live. Separate species, the Asian and African elephants are unalike in many ways. One of the most pronounced differences is their coloration. African elephants […]
Elephant Update — Asia and Africa
Super Tusker: Is All Well for Boswell?
Meet Boswell. Boswell is a relatively famous elephant who lives in Zimbabwe. His primary notoriety is for standing on his hind legs to fetch juicy leaves and branches that others cannot reach. […]
Must the Past be Prologue?
A timeless image — elephants crossing the grasslands, feeding, interacting, doing what they have done for millennia. They (and their distant, now extinct cousins) walked the earth long before the advent of […]
Giants’ Steps
Did you know that the largest land mammal — the multi-ton elephant — can walk by you in such silence that you may not even know they are present unless you see […]
Cecil’s Legacy
The outrage over the murder of Zimbabwe’s most famous lion, Cecil, by an American dentist is sparking renewed pledges to “do something” about illegal wildlife trafficking. As it should. And not a […]
Photo Essay: Life Without Mom
The ancients thought that rain was the tears of the Gods. During my most recent visit to the David Sheldrick Trust orphanage for elephants in Nairobi, the heavens opened up and poured […]
Life Insurance
The African elephant’s natural life span in the wild is up to 70 years. The median age is 56, meaning that half die before 56 and half live to be older than […]
Eye on Elephants
Did you know? Elephants have relatively small eyes for an animal of their size. Their eyes’ position on the sides of their massive heads produces better peripheral than binocular vision. Elephants rely […]
Mourning in Kenya
I am packing for my annual visitation to elephant country. Thirty years have passed since my first visit to Africa. . .to Kenya, a place so filled with wildlife and beauty that […]
Ivory’s Curse
“An abundant endowment of high-value wildlife can be a resource curse that ultimately leaves human societies worse off. The damage being done to African elephants from poaching is very real, but so […]
