"Who gives a hoot about habitat?"

Elephant Composite Population Graph

Elephant populations once numbered in the tens of millions. Today they number in the hundreds of thousands. The SANI value is less than one.

Asian Elephant Information from USFWS:
http://species.fws.gov/bio_elep.html
"Found throughout much of Africa, those living in bush habitat are found south of the Sahara, while those inhabiting forest areas live in Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, and other central and western African nations. Although African elephants numbered approximately 1.5 million in 1978, today there are about 600,000 African elephants remaining in the wild. While habitat destruction and fragmentation threaten the African elephant's future, the greatest immediate threat to their survival is poaching, or illegal killing, to supply the ivory market, an extremely lucrative trade. Many products are made from elephant ivory, from jewelry to piano keys. Several African countries have implemented elephant conservation programs, many of which include setting aside preserve areas and hiring wildlife rangers to protect elephants from poachers. However, limited resources and the eminent danger of poaching operations, as well as the political instability of many African countries, makes it very challenging to implement effective, long-term elephant conservation programs in Africa."

Asian Elephant Information from USFWS:
http://species.fws.gov/bio_elep.html
The Asian elephant's home is in the forests and jungles of India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, and southeast Asia. Today, there are about 29,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants remaining in the wild. While poaching threatens African elephants, Asian elephants are mainly threatened by destruction and fragmentation of their habitat. Conversion of certain areas to crop land to feed ever- growing human populations in places like India has led to an increased amount of elephant attacks on humans, as elephants eat crops planted on lands that were once their feeding grounds. Elephant migratory routes have been interrupted by highways and other urban development. Such fragmentation isolates herds, preventing unrelated elephants from mating with one another -- a vital necessity if elephants are to maintain their genetic diversity and survive in perpetuity."

This little graph shows the increase in human numbers in the last few thousand years. In this case, the distance from 1,000 million to 7,600 million is 7.6 times the distance from zero to 1,000 million. 7.6 billion is demographers' mid projection. Graph curve is from Learning Tools, KQED TV, San Francisco, a PBS educational tv station. Overpopulation denialists right and left have asked about the source, so now you know. The leader of the Task Force on Amphibian Decline living in Britain objected calling the graph extreme and, "off the scale." But it isn't. It is simply demographer's mid projection.

Usually when such a graph is drawn, a short time scale is used. But an evolutionarily significant time scale can more easily show relevant amounts of increase per unit of time.

The distance from 1,000 million to 7,600 million is 7.6 times the distance from zero to 1,000 million. The graph is an accurate representation.

Source:
KQED, a PBS program available on video tape to eligible schools and non-profit groups. 60 minutes. To Order: Call Films for the Humanities, 1.800.257.5126
http://www.pbs.org/kqed/population_bomb/hope/teacher.html

naturalsciences.sdsu.edu/classes/lab2.7/lab2.7.html

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