An elephant with tusks reaching the ground is typically defined as a big tusker. According to Rowland Ward’s records, the heaviest tusk of an African elephant weighed an astonishing 226lb (102.5kg), the heaviest tusk of a woolly mammoth weighed 201lb (91.2kg) and the heaviest tusk of an Asiatic elephant weighed 161lb (73kg). -
Unfortunately, hunters very much prize the so-called "hundred pounders" - elephants whose tusks weigh at least 45kg each. As a combined result of trophy hunting, large scale exploitation of ivory for consumer goods in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and devastating poaching, big tuskers have almost been wiped off the African continent. Once a common sight, roaming far and wide across East, Central and Southern Africa, now there are very few big tuskers left on the whole continent. -
These elephants are like no others. They have captured our imagination. Big tuskers have become incredibly special -
stringent measures need to be taken to protect these amazing animals. A combination of solutions, including constant surveillance, armed protection, relocation and artificial insemination programmes, is arguably the way forward. As Satao's tragic death has proven, simple armed protection is not enough and big tuskers need armed guards to monitor them 24/7 - a similar protection to that which was enjoyed by an iconic bull called Ahmed in the Marsabit National Park in Kenya in the 1970s. -
Text credit: George Dian Balan
