{"id":9766,"date":"2024-10-10T20:05:53","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T20:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/ccb\/?page_id=9766"},"modified":"2026-03-20T15:47:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T15:47:38","slug":"forest-elephants","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/ccb\/elephant-listening-project\/forest-elephants\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest Elephants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The last living elephants with a chance at preserving their original lifestyle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Forest elephant populations are in severe decline due to habitat loss and poaching for ivory. If we can stop, or even reverse, this decline, forest elephants actually have the best chance of any elephant species to persist with the full range of behaviors and landscape movements that evolved for survival in their rainforest home. This is because there still are huge expanses of relatively unexploited forest in Central Africa (the second largest tropical forest landscape on earth), and the human population density is relatively sparse and urban. Elephants can move across quite large distances and in East Africa and Asia they are increasingly fenced into protected areas, causing a suite of management problems. Keeping forest elephants roaming freely through Gabon and Congo and Cameroon is our goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Evolution<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Only in 2013 had sufficient evidence accumulated to consider the forest elephant its own distinct species (Loxodonta cyclotis<\/em>). Before this, the savannah or bush elephant and the forest elephant were considered subspecies of the inclusive taxon Loxodonta africana<\/em>. Recent analysis of DNA from fossils reveals that forest elephants are more closely related to the now-extinct straight-tusked elephant (Paleoloxodon antiquus<\/em>) of European forests than to any other living elephant (1, 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite their clear genetic and morphological differences, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has not yet acknowledged cyclotis<\/em> as a species. It has now been fifteen years since the IUCN released a statement citing the \u201cuncertain\u201d taxonomy of elephants, and calling for further evidence before determining the relationships among existing elephant populations (3). This delay, which is mostly due to politics, has far-reaching consequences for elephant conservation (read more below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationships among the extant (living) elephants shown above would have been controversial several years ago. It takes the scientific community a long time to debate and accept changes in the species designation of an organism, particularly mammals. Changes in bird taxonomy are often decided more efficiently because a specific organization has been vested with the authority to do so. In the mammal world there is no parallel structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Evolutionary relationships of the Elephantidae as proposed from recent analysis of nuclear and ancient DNA. The two extant genera, Loxodonta and Elephas, are shown in parentheses because, if accepted, this proposed tree would require a separate genera for the two African species as well as perhaps for Asian elephants or the now extinct mammoth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For example, an analysis of elephant skulls collected across Africa proposed that forest elephants \u201cdeserve to be ranked as full species.\u201d This study<\/a>, done by Peter Grubb and colleagues (4), concluded that \u201cliving bush and forest African elephants are evolutionarily and ecologically distinct forms.\u201d What the discussion lacked at the time was genetic evidence. With the appearance of elephant research that included genetic sequences, we have now learned \u201cthat little or no nuclear gene flow occurs between forest elephant and savanna elephant populations\u201d (5). In fact, forest and savannah elephants may be as genetically distinct as mammoths (Mammuthus<\/em>) and Asian elephants (Elephas maximus<\/em>), which are considered to be different genera (6).  More on elephant evolution below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Conservation Dilemma<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These taxonomic issues are more than an evolutionary debate within the scientific community. Classification of the species is important for the conservation of forest elephants. It might have been easier to ignore the decline of forest elephants if they were seen as populations within the African elephant species (in fact, the relatively poor data on forest elephant populations before 2013 resulted in conservation decisions by the IUCN and CITES that essentially ignored forest elephants). However, once it is acknowledged that the forest elephant is a unique species, the importance of their conservation rises greatly. The threat of biodiversity loss is increased even further because forest elephants have the highest within-species genetic diversity of all elephantid taxa (4). Hopefully, as the new taxonomic order enters mainstream scientific thinking as well as the imaginations of the public and of policymakers, it will facilitate the effort to study and conserve forest elephants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What We Know About Families<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Families are at the core of all elephant societies, but the size and function of this most basic unit for forest elephants is only just beginning to come to light. Concealed by the forest canopy, they seem to search for food and resources in small groups, just a mom and her calves, but a more complex family structure emerges in forest clearings. How different are these elephants of the forest from the other, better known, elephant species?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elephants have the longest gestation period of all mammals \u2013 22 months, and forest elephants produce a calf only once every 5 to 6 years. This lengthy time interval allows the mother to devote the attention that the calf needs in order to teach it all the complex tasks of being an elephant, such as how to use their trunk to eat, drink and wash, and what to eat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The average forest elephant core family size consists of 2.8 individuals, comprised of a mother and her dependent offspring, but extended families can include as many as seven elephants. Young males form part of these groups until they disperse at around the age of 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families usually visit clearings 2-3 times a year, for two or three days in a row (although some come more often). They often make these visits the same week and month, year after year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often it seems that subgroups of an extended family arrive at a clearing close together in time. But do these subgroups travel together in the forest or do they \u201cshare a plan\u201d for when to meet at the bai? We still don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the Bai \u2013 Glimpses of a Social System<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The mystery of forest elephant society emerges through observations at forest clearings or \u201cbais\u201d (a local term for certain types of clearings). Here we see the extent of relationships maintained among a network of individuals much larger than the core family group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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