What are the odds that elephants will become extinct in the next 30 years?

September 11, 2009 2:59 PM

What are the odds that elephants will become extinct in the next 30 years?

That's my actuarial life expectancy, give or take. I wondered if it was likely that some day of my old age would know the profound embitterment of reading that the last cow had died in captivity, and that these would never walk the earth again.

posted by Joe Beese to science & nature (5 comments total)

Pretty much 0.

"For African elephants, median life spans (excluding premature and still births) were 16.9 years ... for zoo-born females and 56.0 years for (Wild) females undergoing natural mortality (35.9 years with human-induced deaths)." From a recent article detailing elephant lifespans, and how terrible captivity is for them.

Even if no more elephants were born starting today, there would still be heaps left in 30 years unless someone gets a huge hankering for tusks, or a new disease erupts.
posted by scodger at 3:12 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]

I don't know the odds, but "extinct-in-the-wild" is certainly much more likely than "extinct", which is probably close to zero in terms of odds.
posted by spaltavian at 3:26 PM on September 11

That's a relief.

Keep on trunkin', guys.
posted by Joe Beese at 3:43 PM on September 11 [2 favorites]

African elephants are undergoing something of a population explosion for the last 20 years or so, enough so that in many parts of Africa they've had to be culled to prevent environmental catastrophe from overpopulation.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 4:18 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]

African elephants are undergoing something of a population explosion for the last 20 years or so

Africa's a big continent. They're doing well in a lot of parks, especially South Africa, but in other areas they've been pretty much decimated (literally), e.g. Central African Republic. But they're not going extinct in the next 30 years. I'd worry more about tigers.
posted by one_bean at 5:37 PM on September 11 [1 favorite]