Kenyan Hollywood sensation Lupita Nyong’o who also happens to be daughter to Kisumu governor and Orange Democratic Movement luminary Anyang Nyong’o has now come out to add her voice on disturbing numbers.
Elephants are magical, but there are less than 500k left on our planet. Help conserve these gentle giants by going to @WildAid’s page. #WorldElephantDay 
Earlier the actress had congratulated her father for winning re-election as Kisumu governor.
Worth noting is that back in 1930, as many as 10 million wild elephants roamed huge swaths of the African continent. But decades of poaching and conflict have since decimated African elephant populations. In 2016, experts estimated that Africa’s elephant population had dropped by 111,000 elephants in the span of a decade. Today, there are just 415,000 elephants across Africa. While elephant poaching is trending downward, with significant declines in East Africa, poaching continues to steer the species dangerously nearer to extinction.
The Great Elephant Census spanned 18 countries and 295,000 miles, making it the largest, most comprehensive survey of African elephants ever. But the results, released in 2016, were sobering: Just 352,271 savanna elephants were found across their current range—a 30% drop in seven years.
There are two sub-species: savanna— or bush—elephants (shown here) and forest elephants, which are half the size of their savanna relatives and suffering even greater population loss.
In 2016, the IUCN reported that Africa’s elephant population had seen its worst decline in 25 years, mostly as the result of intensified poaching for ivory. In East Africa, elephant populations have nearly halved in a decade. Botswana is currently home to more elephants than any other African country, and southern Africa remains a stronghold for 293,000, or 70%, of the estimated remaining African elephants.
