World Elephant Day, 2016: Why pachyderms on verge of extiction?

New Delhi: Much ink have been spilt over the dwindling population of wild elephants across the world but lack of stern action, awareness and increasing rate of wild life crimes have pushed them at a critical point.

Years of poaching and habitat destruction have reduced their population to a few hundreds or thousands. If we want to protect our forest, we need to understand one important point that elephants play a crucial role in maintaining the biodiversity of the forests.

The jumbo mammals promote growth of certain flora by creating gaps in vegetation and allow new plants to grow.

On this World Elephant Day, let's take a look at the factors that are major culprits of their decreasing population:

Quest for land

With rise in human population, the series of brutal killings of elephants also raised. The space demand, industrialization and need for money triggered the battle of commodity. The invention of guns soared the situation and wiped out thousands of herds from their natural habitat.

Retaliation or protective killings

Animal-human conflicts are very common in the rural or tightly-congested area and are also one of the major causes of elephant deaths. According to The Guardian, panicked or enraged elephants kill more than 400 people each year in India, which ultimately leads to retaliation. In order to protect villagers, wildlife authorities often hunt down and kill the problem elephants. Sometimes, even palm oil growers also poison dozens of elephants.

Poaching and other wildlife crimes

Data released on UN world wildlife day revealed that last year more African elephants were killed at a faster rates for their tusks, more than were born. The aggressive illegal international ivory trade that sparked in 1970's has threatened to bring an end of wild elephants in near future.

Habitat loss

Deforestation, large-scale agriculture, burning of forests are causing severe damage to their population.

Climate change

The rise in mercury levels, heat waves and irreversible ecosystem change are spelling bad news for the natures's nearest animals. The more frequent and more severe droughts pose a serious risk for the creature that have to guzzle water all day long to survive.