Loss of habitat and poaching have made African forest elephants a critically endangered species. Counting forest elephants is a far bigger challenge than surveying plains-dwelling savanna elephants from the air. Instead, researchers have been trekking for years through dense undergrowth collecting dung from Gabon’s forest elephants and analyzing the DNA from thousands of samples to determine the number of individual elephants in each plot of land examined. Previous estimates put the population at 50,000 to 60,000 – or about 60% of the world’s remaining African forest elephants. But, unlike their bigger savanna cousins that roam the plains of southern Africa in abundance, most forest elephants live in dense forests so counting them is painstaking work.

Source: The North Africa Journal November 19, 2021 21:19 UTC