LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Elephant: African Elephant
built 663 days ago
Elephant ivory was one used as a source of all kinds of ornaments. In 1989 international laws against "ivory-trading" were created to help declining elephant populations recover. Another problem is the overdevelopment of the areas inhabited by African elephants. Elephants have to constantly migrate in the search for food. If they meet human settlements, conflicts will surely arise, because they destroy fields while searching for food. This conflict has become the most important Elephant issue in recent years.
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The African Elephant is the largest living land mammal, one of the most impressive animals on earth. The Elephant's muscular trunk serves as a nose, hand, extra foot, signaling device and a tool for gathering food, siphoning water, dusting, digging and a variety of other functions. The long trunk permits the elephant to reach as high as 23 feet. It is capable of powerful twisting and coiling movements used for tearing down trees or fighting. The trunk of the African elephant has two finger-like structures at its tip. The tusks, another remarkable feature, are greatly elongated incisors (elephants have no canine teeth).
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Elephant Encounter features four outdoor habitats as well as the Convergys African Lodge. Guests first encounter a naturalistic habitat on the east end of the exhibit that features a swimming channel, which holds 110,000 gallons of water. It is 10 feet 6 inches deep with enough room for an elephant to completely submerge and swim from one end to other.
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Lehnhardt noted that breeding African elephants is a challenging process, so it is especially exciting that this is the second African elephant to be born at Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park. A male calf, Tufani, was born in May 2003 and has gained nearly 600 pounds in its first year of growth. Lehnhardt said that because many of the elephants giving birth in zoos and wildlife parks are first-time mothers -- just as several of the elephant cows at Disney's Animal Kingdom are -- it is not unusual for the animals (both in the wild and in wildlife parks) to lose their first calf, either through a still birth or following the birth. He is optimistic that observation and interaction with Tufani has helped the other elephants gain additional maternal knowledge... improving the success rate for the Animal Kingdom breeding program. Two other elephants at Disney's Animal Kingdom are pregnant and due in 2005; one is expected next spring and the other in late winter.
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In 1989, hunting of the African elephant and ivory trading were forbidden, after the elephant population fell from several million at the beginning of the 20th century to fewer than 700,000. Some of the African elephant populations were ... further threatened by the expansion of human populations into their historical territories. Scientists then estimated that, if no protective measures were taken, the wild elephant would be extinct by 1995. The protection that the elephant now receives has been partially successful, but despite increasingly severe penalties imposed by governments against illegal hunting, poaching is still common.
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May 23, 2003 -- The Walt Disney World Resort's animal care team welcomed the first African elephant calf to be born at Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park last night. The 296-pound bundle of joy was born at 10:05 p.m. to its 22-year-old mother Moyo. The first-time mother was in labor on and off for four hours before giving birth to the calf, which was conceived through artificial insemination on August 25, 2001. This is the fourth surviving African elephant calf in North America to have resulted from an artificial insemination procedure.
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African Elephant