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Our relationship with elephants—from circus entertainers to loggers to black market bounties—is often complex, if not cruel.
Prized for their majestic ivory tusks, elephant populations across much of Africa and Asia have been decimated by poaching. It's estimated that a hundred African elephants are killed each day for their ivory, meat, and body parts. And despite an international ban on the trade of ivory, prices are rising and the slaughter is worsening; in 2013 more than 20,000 elephants were killed for their ivory.
To commemorate the third annual World Elephant Day, National Geographic presents some of our most powerful images of the endangered animal over the past century.
In this photo, an elephant in Samburu National Reserve in Kenya stands tall among her herd.
Text by Gloria Dickie, Photo Editing by Kathy Moran
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
Beginning in the 19th century, European and American demand for ivory products—everything from billiard balls to piano keys—soared. This photograph from 1912 shows a bull elephant that was killed in a hunting expedition.
Photograph by Carl E. Akeley, National Geograhpic
Two men pose with the largest elephant tusks in the world, nearly twice their height, in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in the early 1900s. As elephant populations decline, wildlife officials note that they're confiscating smaller and smaller tusks—some even coming from babies.
Photograph by A. C. Gomes and CO., National Geographic
Once a popular circus act, the use of elephants in show business has come under scrutiny in recent years. Perhaps the most famous circus elephant of all was Jumbo, a 19th-century male African bush elephant. Orphaned at a young age, Jumbo was exported to a Paris zoo before finding his way to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, an American circus company billed as "The Greatest Show on Earth." He was killed by a train in 1885 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.
Photograph by Atwell, H. A., National Geographic
A man rides an elephant through recently cleared land in Ceylon, a British colony that later became modern-day Sri Lanka. Timber elephants have been employed in logging operations for hundreds of years (see "Thailand's Urban Giants"), but industrialization and animal rights concerns have slowly phased out elephant laborers in most regions. Today a small pocket of logging elephants remains in the forests of Myanmar.
Photograph by Alexander Graham Bell, National Geographic
A herd of protected elephants forages and drinks in India's Kaziranga National Park. The Asian elephant is typically smaller than the African elephant, and females often lack tusks, offering them some protection from poachers.
Photograph by Steve Winter, Nat Geo Image Collection
Hundreds of elephants thunder across a burned-out section of the Sudd Swamp in Sudan. In the dry season, much of the swamp succumbs to bush fires, creating dust clouds that swell during seasonal migrations.
Photograph by George Steinmetz, Nat Geo Image Collection
Sheltered by older relatives, a newborn elephant slowly crosses the Ewaso Ngiro River in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve. Most elephants won't reach full maturity until they're between 10 and 15 years old.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
Adolescent elephants lock tusks on the savannas of Samburu, Kenya, watched closely by family members. Socializing—including play fighting—is essential to elephant life.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
At the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, orphaned elephants paint themselves in terra-cotta-colored mud—a refreshing ritual that keeps the bugs away and protects them from the scorching African sun. And of course, the muddy "me time" is an elephant's version of fun.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
An elephant matriarch clashes with an intruder near Botswana's Chobe River.
Photograph by Chris Johns, National Geographic
In rural Africa, elephants are often seen as a nuisance. A herd can destroy an entire season's crops in a matter of minutes, creating immense hardship for subsistence farmers who depend on a bountiful harvest for their livelihood and survival. With elephant-proof fences falling out of their price range, many farmers opt for a lethal solution. The snare pictured above, though intended for crop raiders like antelope, sometimes takes other victims.
Photograph Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
A man gingerly strokes the desiccated hide of an African elephant in Bouba Ndjidah National Park, Cameroon. The mass slaughter of 650 elephants in the park in February 2012 was considered one of the largest in decades. This past fall, poachers used cyanide to poison a Zimbabwean water hole, killing an additional 300 elephants.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, National Geographic/Getty Images
To keep the ivory from the black market, a ranger hacks the tusks off a bull elephant killed illegally in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. It's estimated that, worldwide, two wildlife rangers are killed in the line of duty every week due to increasingly violent clashes with poachers.
Photograph by Brent Stirton, National Geographic/Getty Images
Green-coated keepers at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya stand watch over baby Shukuru during the rainy season, just as her mother would have in the wild. Keepers fashion XXXL raincoats for the orphaned elephants out of pieces of tents to protect them from the cold.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
Elephants linger under the moonlight, savoring the cold water of Zakouma National Park's last remaining water hole during the dry season in Chad.
Photograph by Michael Nichols, Nat Geo Image Collection
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