World Elephant Day 2020

Alan Taylor
August 12, 2020
21 Photos
In Focus

August 12 has been set aside as World Elephant Day since 2011. Supported by numerous conservation agencies, the day is a time to “spread awareness, share knowledge, and provide solutions for better care and management of both captive and wild elephants,” according to the organizer’s website. Elephants continue to face numerous challenges, including poaching, habitat loss, exploitation, abuse, and proximity to human conflict and poverty. On this World Elephant Day, I’ve gathered a few recent images of African and Asian elephants in their natural habitat, as well as in preserves and protected parks.

An earlier version of this photo essay misidentified the location of one of the photos. The caption has been corrected.

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One of a series of images by the photographer Greg Du Toit, taken in Botswana's Mashatu Game Reserve between 2014 and 2017, giving a close view of the lives of elephants. #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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A baby elephant swims in a water hole in Botswana. #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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Elephants ford the Ewaso Nyiro River in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya on May 8, 2013. #

Carl De Souza / AFP / Getty

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A baby elephant runs in Botswana's Mashatu Game Reserve. #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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Elephants walk through marshland in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. #

Jwngshar Narzary / EyeEm / Getty

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Naomi, a senior elephant keeper, sings to one of the older orphan calves at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy, in central Kenya, on February 26, 2020. The community-owned elephant sanctuary gives care to abandoned or orphaned elephant calves and conditions them for release back to the wild as they approach four years of age. The sanctuary also benefits the local Samburu people who live alongside the animals and who are seen as an expanding community-driven grassroots conservation movement in northern Kenya. Each year, some five to ten elephants calves are rescued from a population of around 8,700. #

Tony Karumba / AFP / Getty

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Elephants are seen as they cross Lake Kioko in Amboseli National Park in Kenya on August 11, 2020. #

Baz Ratner / Reuters

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Elephants play in Amboseli National Park on February 10, 2016. #

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

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A young male elephant enjoys a swim during a brief respite from droughts in South Africa on January 27, 2016, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. #

Stacey Farrell / Barcroft Media via Getty

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A Sumatran elephant infant, born in Tesso Nilo National Park in Riau, Indonesia #

Riau Images / Barcroft Media / Getty

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A close-up view of an elephant in Botswana's Mashatu Game Reserve #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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Elephants troop to a water hole in Amboseli National Reserve on November 13, 2015. #

Tony Karumba / AFP / Getty

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An elephant grazes along a remote river in the Congo. #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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A family of elephants stand during a sudden downpour in Kenya's Samburu Reserve in August of 2015. #

Ingo Gerlach / Barcroft Media / Getty

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In order to get close to his subjects, the photographer Greg Du Toit climbed into an elephant watering hole in Botswana. #

Greg Du Toit / Barcroft Media / Getty

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Elephants walk from the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro to a watering hole in the morning in Amboseli National Park, Kenya. #

Diana Robinson Photography / Getty

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A leopard walks past an elephant in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya on October 15, 2019. #

Baz Ratner / Reuters

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A broad view of African elephants walking along the Tarangire River in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. #

Gerald Corsi / iStockphoto / Getty

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An elephant sits in one of the channels of the Okavango Delta near Nxaraga village on the outskirts of Maun, Botswana, on September 28, 2019. #

Monirul Bhuiyan / AFP / Getty

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Elephants cluster near a water source in Amboseli National Park in Kenya on June 21, 2018. #

Tony Karumba / AFP / Getty

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Dumbo the baby elephant is washed and fed by a keeper at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust on January 19, 2019, in Nairobi, Kenya. The trust offers an adoption program for orphaned elephants and rhinos, and works across Kenya to secure safe havens for wildlife. #

Dave J Hogan / Getty

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