World Elephant Day – We celebrate the Asian elephant

A whole host of wonderful experiences await you when you travel to Asia.

One of the most amazing of them is the fascinating wildlife that Asian countries have to offer.

The elephant is a fascinating creature and the baby elephants are guaranteed to make your heart melt.

World focus on this wonderful animal – a species in decline – has increased in recent years. The day, which is called World Elephant Day, has existed since 2012.

Below, you can read more about the day and the Asian elephant, which holds a quite special place in TourCompass’ heart.

What is World Elephant Day?

On World Elephant Day, we celebrate the elephant!

The day has come about to focus on the amazing animals that symbolise strength and wisdom and play a major role in many Asian countries.

The hope is that World Elephant Day will help draw attention to the protection of the elephants.

The reason they need protection is that tens of thousands of elephants are killed every year as a result of poaching. The poachers sell the tusks, meat and skin of the elephants on the black market. Ivory is used to make jewellery, and the skin and meat are used for medicines in South-east Asia.

But something has to be done about this troubling statistic, hence the world’s focus on the elephant on World Elephant Day held on 12 August every year. 

The Asian elephant

The number of Asian elephants has halved over the last 45 years, with just 50,000 Asian elephants remaining in the world.

In recent years, several countries including Sri Lanka have burned or destroyed their stores of ivory to signal to the outside world that they are against poaching and the ivory trade.

But besides the harsh facts about the elephants’ existence, there are many fascinating facts about these magnificent animals. 

Five facts about the Asian elephant

You can experience this beautiful animal on several of our holidays – e.g. in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

You might already know a lot about elephants, but here are five facts about the Asian elephant that you perhaps don’t know. 

1) The Asian elephant is big!

The Asian elephant can grow up to a length of 6.5 m and weighs up to 5 tonnes. Due to its size, the elephant needs to eat up to 150 kg food every day, spending around 16 hours of the day doing so!

However, the Asian elephant is not as big as the African elephant, which is the world’s largest land animal. But it’s still big!

2) Elephants are social animals

Female Asian elephants tend to live in herds, where social relationships are formed and the elephants help each other to raise their young and protect the herd. Unlike African elephants, Asian elephants rarely have a matriarch to lead the herd, though a dominant female elephant may well take over and lead for a while.

Young male elephants typically leave the herd when they reach maturity between the age of 8 and 13. The young male elephants sometimes form their own herd of male elephants.

2) Elephants have delicate skin

You might have noticed elephants throwing earth on themselves or covering themselves in mud. They do this to protect themselves from the sun.

Adult elephants often shade their young when they sleep to protect them.

3) Elephants can hear through their feet:

Elephants emit sounds between 0 and 20 hertz. By comparison, people can only hear sounds from 20 hertz.

Elephants can feel the vibration of very low sounds in the earth with their feet and understand what they mean – from a distance of up to 3.5 kilometres to boot!

5) The elephant’s trunk has 100,000 muscles

The trunk is an important tool for the elephant and is used to smell, breathe, drink and pick up things such as food.

What’s more, Asian elephants have one finger-like growth at the end of their trunks which they use to pick up smaller items (African elephants have two).

See the Asian elephants

As mentioned above, if you would like to see the Asian elephant, you have the opportunity to do so at several of our destinations, e.g. in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

In Sri Lanka, you will find the Asian elephant in the country’s national parks, e.g. in Minneriya National Park, one of the best places in the country to see elephants, while in Thailand you can meet the elephant in a completely different way at ChangChill.

Want to learn more about World Elephant Day? Read more about the day and the various initiatives here.

TourCompass – From tourist to traveller