We humans have had a complicated relationship with elephants and just nature in general. Lots of us think that the earth is just there for us to take for ourselves, and while we can take some of it for us we also have to be aware of the animals that also call this planet home. Our historical relationship with elephants has been an interesting one, especially in Asia. Where to start, we have harnassed the elephant's power for all sorts of tasks. We used them as plows for crops, transportation of people and supplies, for entertainment in circuses, as war machines and even worshipped the elephant as gods. Asian elephants have been more cultured than their African counterparts, but they still saw their share of human interactions. During the Carthagineon war, Hannibal took his massive army along with 38 trained war elephants over the mountains to attack the Roman Empire, which he promptly lost. These elephants were unleashed upon the Roman forces and caused fear and dissention in their ranks. Another example lies in the time of Alexander the Great when he invaded India. His troops were too scared to try and engage the Indian forces because of they had never seen elephants before. They were scared of the elephants because of their immense size and all the noise the elephants made, so Alexander the Great was repelled from India. Asia has used elephants as beasts of burden for thousands of years, hauling supplies, moving logs and plowing fields. Even today elephants are used for work, most time they are treated well, but there are the exceptions. As recent as the Vietnam war, elephants were still being used to transport supplies through rough terrain where vehicles wouldn't dare go. In the Hindu culture the elephant is worshipped as a god called Ganesha.

     Ganesha is the god of fertility and wisdom, and portraying himself as an elephant is rather fitting. Some believe that an elephant will share it's knowledge and wisdom but no one knows if this is true or not. Either way, elephants in India and Sri Lanka are sometimes kept in temples and pampered day in and day out. When Thailand was still Siam a white elephant was their symbol and considered a sacred animal. Baby white elephants even had human wet nurses. Though their not really white just a light gray but I can call them white elephants. When a new temple was to be built a white elephant would be let loose and find the location for the temple. Asia has always had a fascination with elephants, they are used in celebrations, where the elephants are adorned in decorative nettipattam, or caparison. Asian elephants are often captured, domesticated and used for different labors. The people who handle the elephants are called mahouts. Mahouts are the elephant caretaker and they have to provide the elephant with all it's needs.

     Despite our fascination and our devotion to elephants as gods and status symbols. Elephants have also, unfortunately, inspired greed. Elephants now face challenges they've never faced before, poaching, habitat loss, and illegal trade. Even though people worship elephants in Asia, temple elephants are often stolen from their families as calves. Often times that means the adult elephants are killed in this attempt, leaving the calves traumatized. In the working industry, elephants are sometimes overworked and reduced to street begging for food, instead of being properly cared for. I heard of one male elephant named Raju who was rescued from such a life. He had to beg for food and was beaten and burned, he was also forced to wear chains that wrapped around his ankles and had spikes digging into his ankles. He had to endure this for over 40+ years, until he was rescued and released to a sanctuary in Thailand where he is living out the rest of his days in peace and comfort. Raju was lucky, others aren't so fortunate. Circuses are also not an ideal place for elephants either, I mean forced to do tricks for the enjoyment of humans. This is why I don't do circuses anymore, if you like them, God bless you, go have a great time. Just don't ask me to go. Elephants in zoos are in a very slight better situation. While elephants are well fed and cared for, zoos have one thing they simply can't deliver on, adequete space. Now zoos are resticted on budget and have to make a lot of tough decisions and can't always deliver on animals space requirments. Elephants, as you can imagine, require massive amounts of space, at minimum 100 acres, are required to keep an elephant satisfied. Now space is limited, I get it, but if you cannot deliver on this, then find another facility that can house elephants properly. What happens to elephants that don't have enough space? Well they often suffer from obesity and arthritis, and as a result they only live around 45 years max. An elephant in the wild can live up to 70 years and die as a result of their molars finally wearing out for good and starving to death. There is also the tourism industry, which is ok, but they bad thing about it is that elephants are not meant to carry people on their back for hours. Their skeletons are not supposed to take that kind of strain. Still it's better than poaching and habitat loss, I'll start with the latter. Poaching is the biggest threat to elephants today here's why. The wild Asian elephant population, amongst all subspecies dangles at 35,000 - 50,000 individual elephants. The African elephant is a little better but still very much at risk, populations sitting at 300,000 - 700,000 individual elephants. Estimations say that poaching kills 100 elephants everyday. Meaning if we do nothing now, in this decade elephants could be extinct, and that would be really sad. Poaching is illegal in most countries but a few still allow the trade of ivory, especially China. Ok I am going to quote a piece from an author I found right here on Wattpad, StephieLynn1226, she did a piece about trying to save elephants, so go check out her channel and read her stories. This piece is about the price of ivory in the ivory trade and I quote, "National Geographic did research on how much ivory costs from the time it is taken from the elephants, up until the time it is put in the markets. For just a pound of ivory, middlemen pay poachers anywhere from $66 to $397. As they het moved, tusks end up becoming more expensive, $220 to $496. When the ivory arrives at an export center, the price rises again, this time the value is $606 to $882. When the ivory reaches the Asian markets, the prices sky rockets anywhere between $946 to $4,630." End quote, thanks again to StephieLynn1226 for letting me borrow this piece. As you can see ivory is lucrative and remains the biggest threat to the elephants survival. While national parks have rangers and guards, poachers will sometimes bribe or even kill these rangers if they impede their goals. It is wrong to kill these magnificent animals for something so, material. Poaching is not the only thing threatening their survival, suitable habitat is disappearing fast. This in turn pushes humans and elephants into conflict with each other, which is dangerous for both sides. Humans continue to clear more and more land for crops and fields for livestock, elephants are just hungry and looking for something easy and sweet to eat. Most times, when elephants invade and take crops, a farmers response is to kill the elephant. Come on guys, seriously?! This is not the way to do this, you have to see it through the elephants eyes. To them crops are just another, easier, source of nutrients, elephants don't understand that they're not supposed to eat that. Elephants may be intelligent and complex, but they are still driven by animalistic needs and take whatever they can get. This combination of challenges are proving near impossible to combat, and if this keeps up we may lose elephants forever and future generations of humans will look at us and ask. Why didn't we do more to help save them?