Forest Elephants: Meet the Little Guys

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ebony Money and I'm Rick Schwartz. Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore the unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of My Heart Radio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, in international nonprofit conservation organization behind the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park. People can visit African savannah elephants in Asian elephants at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. But today we're talking about the third species of elephants, the African forest elephant, which, like its name suggests, is found in the forests of Africa. More specifically, they inhabit rainforest in the Congo Basin in western Africa. In this installment of Amazing Wildlife, we're going to find out how elephants have adapted to life in the forest and talk about community efforts to protect elephants of the evil forest. We will also be speaking with a manager of the Ebble Forest Research Project and Cameroon. Rick. I must admit that these three species of elephants all look pretty much the same to me. What makes an African savannah, African forest and Asian elephant so different. Well, yes, Ebony, I agree. I mean I think perhaps at first glance, an elephant looks like an elephant. They're big, grayish colored animals with long trunks, right, But when you take a moment or two to really compare the three different species, well you kind of start to see the differences. For example, and I have to say, there is a ton of information about how they're different, but we're just going to get to some of it. I'll impact the trunk of information if you will. For example, if you look at the ears of the African elephant versus the ears of the Asian elephant, you can see a remarkable difference. Both the African savannah and African forest elephants ears are much larger, and the shape of the ear kind resembles the continent of Africa. And some people will remark that the Asian elephants ears, well, they have a similar shape to Southern Asia, more specifically the country of India, an area where they inhabit. Another way to distinguish the difference is to look at their backs. So the Asian elephants back makes more of an arch from shoulders to hips, where the African elephants back is kind of concave or or curves down a little bit in the middle. And now that we've discussed the difference between the African elephant and the Asian elephant, let's break it down a little bit further. What's the difference between the African forest elephant and the African savannah elephant. The main differences that we see between these two are as follows. The African forest elephant is smaller in height and weight, and they have straighter and usually a little bit smaller tusks. And although they both have ears that are shaped similar to the continent of Africa, the ears for the forest elephant are considered to be a little bit smaller and a little more rounder on the edges, if you will. Then the savannah elephant, it's not hard to distinguish unless you see them next to each other or pictures at least of them next to each other. So how far back can scientists trace this species split? How long have we known that there were three different types of elephants? Yeah, I think that's a really good question, because I can say even when I was in college studying animals, there were two distinct species elephants, we had Asian africans. So the official identification of the African forest elephant being a separate species from the African savannah elephant is fairly recent, and we'll get to that in a minute, But first let's look at the history of elephants and mammoths. The modern elephant of today and the wooly mammoths that went extinct share a common ancestor, so it's understood that the ancestral line split into separate species about six million years ago. Current science shows us that at that time, African elephants branched off first from that common ancestor away from the wooly mammoths to become its own species. Then, about four forty thousand years later, which is quite a bit of time, the Asian elephant branched off from the wooly mammoth, becoming its own species. Now, when it comes to the two different African elephants, a group of scientists recently looked at the genetic ancestry by sequencing the nuclear genomes of both types of African elephants as well as the Asian elephant. Essentially, what that means is they're looking at the historical building blocks of these species. So by comparing all of these genomes are building blocks. The team found that the African forest elephant and the African savannah elephant diverged into two separate species between two point six and five point six million years ago. All of your references to the wooly mammoth just remind me of how much I loved learning about the wily mammoth when I was growing up. It was hard then and even now to imagine just how different the world was when they existed. No, I know, right, But back to modern day elephants. Back to the forest elephant. Since their forest dwellers and elusive, it's not surprising that we don't know as much about them as the savannah elephants and that it took so long to classify them as separate species. So let's uncover some other interesting facts that make them so fascinating to study. Elephants are the largest land mammals, but African forest elephants, as you mentioned, are smaller than their counterparts in the savannah. How would you describe like if you had to kind of give us a visual, how would you describe your size? Well, ele meany when we look at the numbers of how they measure up. The African savannah elephants are bigger than the African forest elephants, So, for example, nail African savannah elephants can grow up to and sometimes a little over nine feet in height at the shoulder and way easily up to seventeen thousand pounds, about the weight of a midsized car, whereas the male African forest elephants are usually coming in no more than eight feet and hight the shoulder, and their weight is a lot smaller, some of them only reaching six thousand pounds, but some of them up to twelve thousands. And interestingly enough, here are a few other subtle differences between the two. For example, the savannah elephants tusks are curved and tend to grow out at a slight angle away from the midline of the elephant, whereas the forest elephants have tusks that are shorter, straighter, and kind of point downward. And get this, African savannah elephants have four nails on their front feet and three nails on their back feet. So remember that four and three for the savannah, but the African forest elephant has five nails on the front feet and four nails on the back feet. And that might seem like a minor detail, but when it comes to taxonomy, the study of the physical structure of animals, that is actually a very interesting fact and ric people working to save animals from extinction often refer to the problem of rapid deforestation, not to oversimplify conservation concerns, but I'd imagine that issue is particularly a problem for any species that inhabits the forest. Yes, I think that's a fair assessment, ebony. Unfortunately, many forest habitats across the world are facing some challenging times. The biggest challenges that the African forest elephants are up against are sort of a combination of poaching for their ivory and habitat loss. Being poached for ivory has caused a drop in the population by across a nine year period in the early two thousands. In that same window of time, they also lost about thirty of their range due to habitat loss. The habitat loss is caused by a combination of forest habitat being cleared for agricultural use, livestock farming, and human infrastructure use. The combination of these and other events have created a situation where the African forest elephant is listed as a critically endangered species, which is so unfortunate. Other than the habitat, does the African elephant have any differences? Do they behave differently than the savannah elephant? Oh? I think what's really interesting about this question, Empany, is that it helps us discover that animals can be very similar in many ways, but when they live in different environments, they sometimes behave differently. And a challenge with the forest elephant is that it is so elusive scientists are just beginning to understand their behavior. Because they live in different environments, savannah and forest elephants interact with their environment differently. The African forest elephants tend to eat more fruit and leafy materials, whereas the African savannah elephants tend to graze on different grasses and plants that grow abundantly in the rainy season. And interestingly enough, forest elephants also crave salt, so they'll visit mineral dense areas and sometimes even eat soil, which provides them with those minerals they're missing from their diet. Interesting, I have something in common with the forest elephant. I too crave salts. Many of us. So what about family dynamics. We talked about the African savannah elephant and episode one. Can you bloo? Rick, We are already right now recording episode twenty. I know, Ebanie, it's pretty amazing to already be this far into our amazing wildlife podcast and we have so much more to cover two. But that's a good point. If anyone wants to know more about elephants, go back to episode one if you haven't heard it yet. But yes, let's jump back into this. Uh, let's talk about family dynamics. So when it comes to families or herds, African forest elephants live in smaller social groups of two to six individuals compared that to the larger herds of the African savanna elephants, which can average four to eighteen individuals. And when we look at the bull or male elephants, we tend to see some differences there too. The males of the African savanna elephant will come together in loose bachelor herds, but interestingly enough, the male African forest elephants tend to be solitary. I'm owner it's interesting. So remind us of the impact of this social dynamic. How do female led herds m How does that impact the species? Well, yes, ebony elephant herds are indeed led by a dominant female. This is known as a matriarchal social structure, and a matriarch is usually, but not always, the oldest and largest female in the herd. The matriarch really is the foundation of her family. She is responsible for making the decisions for when the herd should move on to the next food source or go to the next watering hole or river. She leads the other females that are usually her daughters and their offspring with the primary goal of protecting and raising their calves. The matriarch also maintains relationships with other herds, sometimes called bond groups. These bond groups will feed together and mingle at watering holes, but maintain being separate herds and possibly one of the biggest responsibilities of the matriarch is to pass her knowledge down to the next generation of elephants that will eventually take over when she becomes too weak to lead or if she passes away. The sad reality the circle of life. So you mentioned that unfortunate the African forest elephants are critically endangered in nature. Can you expand on that, Yes, unfortunately, any African forest elephants have had a really rough go of things and they now only inhabit of their historical range. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, also known as i u c N, lists the African forest elephant as critically endangered, with the population that is currently declining on their Red list of threatened species. So let's talk about some of the challenges. You mentioned that there have been several challenges, including habitat loss and poaching for their ivory. These are similar challenges for the Asian and African savannah elephants, but they are categorized as endangered on the same red list that you just referenced. Do we know why the African forest elephants are so critically endangered? You really bring up a good point there. The combination of poaching for their ivory and habitat loss has caused dramatic loss and population in all species of elephant. Now. Studies reveal that the African forest elephant had a smaller population before the increased demand for ivory pushed poaching to an all time high by two thousand and eleven. Thus, as the population across all three speeches, development dropped. It really pushed the African forest elephant into a critically low population. It is worth noting though, that many conservation efforts are helping to save these magnificent animals. The International Union for Conservation of Nature sites anti poaching units on the ground for making a difference in lower numbers of elephants lost to poaching, and there are several studies in place that are trying to find solutions to land use requirements by humans and elephants with the hopes that we can find a balance that we all can live with. So it sounds like there's a silver lining there. There's some good news and some positive changes, but it's heartbreaking to find out that the all time poaching high was just into ilusand and eleven. I would have thought that would have been longer ago. Yeah, it does seem like something that is is rather I don't want to say our cave, but it just seems so foreign to many of us. But unfortunately, there was a very strong demand for ivory around the world. It's not just one particular culture or location, and so I think it does show us, though that things are trending in the right direction that the all time high was over ten years ago, So it's nice to see that a lot of the efforts that were put into place ten years ago are having an impact in lowering the numbers of elephants being poached. We're going to check with the manager of the Cameroonian Ebbo Forest Research Project equal about African forest elephants in San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliances efforts to protect them. But first this now it's time for the San Diego Zoom Minute, an opportunity for you to learn what's new at the zoo and how appropriate on this episode that we get to celebrate an elephant milestone at the San Diego Zoo. Our female Asian elephant, Devy, just turned forty five years old. Devi lives at Elephant Odyssey at the San Diego Zoo and receives excellent daily care that includes treatments specially designed for geriatric individuals. That part of the special care that older elephants at the San Diego Zoo receive is physical therapy. Devy has learned to move each of her feet forward and backward one at a time to help her with flexibility and mobility, as well as to help her build strength and stamina. We focus on derration. We want Debbie to hold her foot in position for three to ten seconds, and we also look at the height she is able to raise her feet. Debbie receives these exercise sessions three to four times a week. Today we're talking about the African forest elephant and we're going to bring in a San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance scientists Equo ga Halbway. He is the manager of the Able Forest Research Project and the co leader of the African Forest Hub. Welcome, Thank you, thank you, Fanny, thanks having me. So what is life like for the the African forest elephant in nature? I would say difficult, challenging and stressful. And I say so because the habitat of forest elephants is dissected, is shrinking, and all this is linked to human activities. And even more important is the fact that the elephants are haunted or their tusk ivy as you know. So this makes life really difficult for forest elephants. So what is it like for you seeing a forest elephant in in nature? That's a great question, you know, Um, you would imagine given the huge size of you know, an elephants, even the forest elephant, that it would be so easy to support this in the rainforest or anywhere. But you know, the nature before us is such that the elephants and you know every single SPECIs in there can actually blend so much with nature. So it is you know, sometimes really really difficult to see even a huge elephant, and even when you get so close to it, sometimes you can't see it because of this you know, great blend with nature. But you know when you get a rare opportunity to to see them, which I'll say is often read because of you know, this blend I talked about is always always exciting. But we should not just sit back and say, oh, you know, it would be great to see for us elephant because linked to the threats we have hunting, you know, habitat destruction, these elephants are always always stressed out and they have great memories. They know, you know, x Y was killed you know by humans and as a result, you know, they have that cobia for humans. So um, it's exciting to see them. That it could also be dangerous to encounter forest elephants in this context of course, And I didn't tell me what is the able Forest Research project? So the able Forest Research Project is a Cameroonian registered Angel which we started in two thousand and five UM though it was legalized by the Government of Cameron in two thousand wording and the idea was just you know, for this project is to coordinate our diversity research and conservation outreach in and around the Able Forest. So that in summary is you know, be able for a research project, a local and you're focusing its work on the Able Forest. But actually now we actually expanded out of the apes to work in other parts of the country as well. And you know the habitats who work in all those that are actually reached in great apes, elephants, you know, all these large moments. So yeah, our work is expanding in or not just in the today for forest. So what techniques are are being used, what's actually being done in UM in this project? So UM in terms of research techniques, initially we have a network of transsex and trails to the north and western part of the forest and these were monitored on a daily basis. We're collecting data on mammoth spaces and threats, you know, to to this. Then in two thousand and eight we initiated forest white surveys. Since initially were concentrated just to the north and west of the forests who have this forest white surveys and the idea was to have you know a picture of what is happening across it for us. So we had four hundred human methads of trails that will work over a period of five months. And along these trails we recorded all indicies of large mammals and human threats to our diversity. And one cool thing is that we just finished the surveys for two thousand and two one two thousand and twenty two, so the team is coming back today and we're really happy. So in addition to these two techniques of both, we also use trail cameras, especially in the Gunilla habitats, and elephants happened to be one of these species that we regularly have featured on videos and pictures from the trail cameras. So what partnerships make this work possible? So the able for us such project has been on since two thousand and five when we opened our first susage station in the forest and this was fans to the San Diego Why Alliance, whom, as I said earlier, had yea posed the prosage fellow doctor Ethan Morgan in the forest. And so from that inception to date, we've had continuous support, technical support, financial support, material support, you know, capacity building, just everything from the San Diego's Wildlife Alliance, and in addition to that, we've also enjoyed, you know, support from a broad range of other partners including the U S FACI and Wildlife Service, Actress Foundation, Weekly Fund for Nature, My Good March Bid, Diverse Foundation, Are you seeing the French? Are you seeing Small Scale Initiative Mohammed Anxiety. All these you know donors have actually partnered with us, you know, just make sure everything we're doing in the forest, you know, is for the good of the local communities, the forest and the environment. Um In addition to that we work with the local community is and work is possibly be couse who have you know, these grassroots support, but to also work of course with the government of Cameroon, who are the custodience of you know, the forests and you know wildlife and also other simple society organizations. So yeah, we have great partnerships and that is actually what has kept this forest from given the logging threats that we had recently, and with the Apple Forest Research Project, working to improve the coexistence of people and wildlife. What's been the response from people in the community. As I said before, we have modern forty communities around the forest, um several administrative units, and you know, all of these people in many ways linked to the forests in one way or the other. They used to be communities that used to live inside the forest, so they have this ancestral and cultural attachment to the forest. The forest is a source of life notes, you know, for all of these communities. And so what we've been driving through, you know, working with these communities is you know, having a hearty human community is linked with having a hearty wildlife population as well as healthy environment. And so we have community basic society organizations who are working with like the traditional chiefs of able forests. We have good lack guardian clubs and chimpanzee guardian clubs, and so we work with these grassroom communities to promote that healthy coexistence between the wildlife and the local communities. Then we do a lot of sensitization both within the communities and even outside the communities, just to show how important the forest is for the live news of these local communities. There are history, their cultures, you know, and you know the ecosystem services that the forests provide. We also engage in sustainable alternative LIVELY projects in these communities just to reduce the reliance of the local communities on the forest sources and so they can have you no healthy forests and still live well. And one thing we've been doing lately is actually building the capacity of these communities on land tenure issues because recently the government decided to create logging concessions enable and were like, no, you can't just take our land. This is our custom mary Land, this is our ancestral land. And so we're educating them on their rights in terms of land and you know, land use options. So these are all things we're doing to get that sort of coexistence between the local communities and wild lane. So how can data from elephants at the same zoom in saying Safari park help scientists working to conserve elephants in nature and can came around? Yeah, this is a great question, and I think that there's a lot you know that elephants in the while in nature and elephants under human care, you know, you can share together, unlike chimpanzees and gorilla's great explorations that may be easy to habituate under certain conditions. Of course, um there should be no hunting. You know. If you habituate, you know great as you can actually follow them and understand exactly what they're eating, you know, what they do to solve problems, how they slip, you know where they if, how they are range and all of that. This is really relatifficult for elephants and especially in rape for a settin where you can't even see them five meters away from you. So certain behaviors are really really impossible to to observe. But this is a setting us a ury fact where we have the care provided for electants. You know, it's easier to investigate certain behaviors at close range, you know, from reproduction to feeding growth and all of that. So this data and information that is generated here can actually help sciences that are working in you know, a while setting to make predictions and given assumptions about wives settings. We've been talking to Equal gay Away, the manager of the Able Force Research Project and Cameroon, and a saying while left blience scientist, thank you so much, Thank you so much kind for having me, thanks for listening. We hope you learned a lot about African forest elephants. Be sure to subscribe and tune into next week's episode and which we're bringing the story of our veterinarians sometimes have to work with doctors who work with people to work with our animals. I'm Ebony Money and I'm Rick Schwartz. Thanks for listening. If you would like to find out more about San Diego Zoo WILDLFE Alliance, please visit sdz w a dot org Amazing Wildlife. As a production of I Heart Radio, our producer is Nikkia Swinton and our executive producer is Marcia to Peanut. Our sound engineer and editor is Amita Gnatra. For more shows from my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.