Exploring Nature: Last of the GIANTS

On my first trip to Africa, many years ago, I was riding in an open Land Rover when we came to a clearing in the Kenyan forest and I saw my very first wild animal. It was a massive elephant and perched on its back was a small bird, an oxpecker, according to our guide.

The bird was tolerated by the elephant since it picked off bothersome ticks and other tiny critters. The gray-skinned elephant looked at us with some curiosity and then returned to eating grass.

Since then, I have often thought about that majestic beast and hoped he is doing well. Elephants live for 60-70 years so he could still be alive.

Or not. Because elephants are routinely slaughtered in Africa, both for food and for their ivory tusks. Some villages in the African interior find elephants a nuisance since they raid their crops. And there is good money for ivory tusks.

A keystone species, the elephant is a wondrous creature — weighing 2 to 7 tons and standing as high as 13 feet. The largest land mammal.

African elephants have huge ears, their floppy appendages can make up to 20 percent of the total skin surface. With blood vessels near the surface, the ears serve as efficient cooling devices — becoming giant air conditioners.

Each day, an adult male will eat some 300 pounds of food — leaves, grass, fruits, roots and bark — and will drink 30 to 50 gallons of water.

Elephants do not have sweat glands so they lose water from their skin by evaporation. And their trunk is a marvel of sensitivity and useful in everything from eating to serving as a snorkel when elephants swim across rivers.

There are some reasons to be hopeful. In 1989, many countries passed bans on ivory trading and China finally banned the trade in 2018.

Most helpful has been the creation of national parks in Africa where elephants and all creatures are protected from hunters. This came too late for the elephants in Chad and Sudan, where all the elephants were wiped out.

But it is estimated some 415,000 still remain. So the majestic giants are still among us. Thank goodness.