Save the Elephant Day 2023: Date, History, Facts about Elephants

Save the Elephant Day is celebrated globally on April 16 each year. It aims to bring attention to the plight of elephants, whose population has continued to decline significantly.

The background of Save the Elephant Day

Elephants are the largest existing terrestrial animals and are distributed throughout Africa and Asia. Recent estimates place the number of elephants on the African continent at just over 400,000, and although the situation varies from country to country, it cannot be denied that the enormous mammals are in decline on a continental scale. Human activities such as ivory poaching continue to be a major cause of the decline.

Save the Elephant Day aims to reverse this disturbing trend by educating the public about elephants and their plight and encouraging everyone to do their part to prevent the extinction of elephants.

Global organisations have collaborated to combat some of the most significant threats to elephant populations. The international commercial traffic of ivory was prohibited in 1989. The member states of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) reached an agreement to prohibit the international ivory trade.

China, the greatest ivory market in the world, demanded a ban on ivory sales within its borders in 2016. The U.K. Ivory Act 2018 received royal assent on December 20, 2018, after being enacted by the British Parliament. In the future, the legislation may be expanded to include hippos, walruses, and narwhals.

Save the Elephant Day was founded in 2012 by the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation in Thailand and Canadian filmmaker Patricia Sims. “Return to the Forest,” a documentary film narrated by “Star Trek” actor William Shatner, was released in 2012 in conjunction with the introduction of this global initiative.

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5 IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT ELEPHANTS

Elephants are essential to ecosystems and are regarded as a keystone species due to their function.

African elephants have much larger ears than their Asian counterparts.

Elephant tusks are elongated incisor teeth that first appear at approximately two years of age.

Due to the ivory trade, approximately 90 percent of African elephants have been snuffed out in the previous century.

In most locations, an elephant’s skin is up to 1.6 inches thick.

SAVE THE ELEPHANT DAY DATES

Year	Date	Day
2023	April 16	Sunday
2024	April 16	Tuesday
2025	April 16	Wednesday
2026	April 16	Thursday
2027	April 16	Friday