General Elephant Information       
Elephant Conservation  Chadwick letter  Human-Elephant-Conflict  Ivory  Elephant Demographics   Statistics
Savanna(h)* Elephants

Forest Elephants  Savanna Elephants  Asian Elephants


Loxodonta africana

Numbers include both forest and savannah elephants

Estimates for total African elephants in 1979 were 1.3 million.  The IUCN/SSC African Elephant Specialist Group (AfESG) is responsible for maintaining a database of information on the African elephant, including the difficult task of estimating populations.  The AfESG's 1998 population estimates for the whole continent were "definitely" 301,773 African elephants, with a "speculative" total of 487,345. The database itself is not really intended to yield an Africa-wide total and these figures need to be viewed with caution.  There are unknown numbers of elephants in dense forests and many areas have not been surveyed and prospective populations for those areas are not included in the speculative totals above. 

"It is important to note that the totals presented for each country are minimum estimates, based on the estimates for the areas that have been censused in that country.  Areas of elephant range that have not been censused are not included in these totals.  If all of the elephant range is listed, then the totals are national estimates.  However, if, for example, estimates are given of forest elephants in particular sites which account for only a small proportion of the elephant range in the forest zone (e.g. Cameroon), the total cannot be considered a national estimate."

"Because of the variation in data quality, it is inappropriate to summarise all estimates into one continental total."

       African Elephant Specialist Group (of IUCN)

*either savanna or savannah is correct

Forest Elephants  Savanna Elephants  Asian Elephants

The above links will take you to pages with population data.
Conservation & Conflict   Image Gallery   Links

Website creation, design, and copyright  © 2002-08 by Hank Hammatt.   Images copyright © 2002-08 by Hank Hammatt  (except as noted)
Click here to get information on image use.  All other rights reserved.