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Elephanatics Foundation - Free elephant conservation lesson plans, toolkits for teachers, and persuasive essay resources.

World Elephant Day is August 12th

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"Elephanatics Foundation - Free elephant conservation lesson plans, toolkits for teachers, and persuasive essay resources."

Until August 12th, every dollar you donate to Mara Elephant Project through this fundraiser will be matched by Elephanatics up to a total of $1200!

World Elephant Day is a day that brings the world together to help elephants. This year Elephanatics is partnering with the Mara Elephant Project for WED to raise awareness and funds for the Loita Forest that forms the eastern part of the Greater Mara Ecosystem and is home to not just elephants, but many rare species. The virgin, old-growth, afro-montane forest is one of the most beautiful and intact forests in East Africa. The forest faces significant threats, particularly from current subdivision of communal to private title deed ownership. This subdivision is causing land use change which accelerates the destruction of the forest jeopardizing the wildlife residing within and the surrounding rangelands. Importantly, the rangelands serve as crucial protective buffers and movement corridors for elephants and other wildlife.
A unique opportunity is available for MEP to purchase 1,000 acres or 100 high-value parcels adjacent to the forest core, near wetlands or within corridors, to put into a Conservation Land Trust. Owning these parcels would create a figurative mote that surrounds the 58% of the forest that is community owned, less inhabited, but still at risk of destruction. It also ensures MEP jurisdiction in perpetuity providing a permanent barrier where MEP can enforce forest protection effectively blocking illegal habitat destruction activity from reaching the 58% of the forest.
Their goal is to raise $100,000 in August, which would take them over halfway toward their project funding goal in 2025.
Your much needed donations will be matched and will fund critical activities to protect this area.
We thank you for your continued support. Please donate at: rb.gy/7k17mg
Mara Elephant Project USA, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) dedicated to supporting the efforts of Mara Elephant Project to protect elephants and their habitats across the Greater Mara Ecosystem in Kenya.
Visit their website at https://maraelephantproject.org for more information.
Thank you.
The Elephanatics Team

Elephanatics Newsletter July 2025

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The Elephant Days of Summer!

Summer is here, a time for relaxation and reflection.  Here are some wins and good news on our radar for our elephant lovers!

The Fran Duthie African Elephant Conservation Scholarship application for 2025 is now open and will be administered by the Mara Elephant Project. Accepting applications until the end of July, this scholarship provides financial support, and hands-on training for Kenyan students. The scholarship is intended for students pursuing conservation or a related field. The goal of this scholarship is to provide financial support to Kenyan nationals acquiring a technical certificate, undergraduate or postgraduate degree in an area related to conservation and the protection of wildlife. Alongside the financial support, this scholarship will provide practical experience to the scholar during their studies by undertaking a 1-month internship with a Kenyan conservation organization. 

Apply today -> https://buff.ly/haSKLIw

We’re thrilled to share that The Mara Elephant Project is currently hosting recipient Mary Wangari at HQ  for a one-month internship. Read more here.  

It takes a village! A big elephantine thank you to Vegan Supply for once again letting us be their ‘jar donation’ recipient for the month of June. With their support we were able to raise funds to support our education and conservation programs. Vegan Supply is one of North America’s largest vegan online marketplaces.

Mark Your Calendars! August 12th is World Elephant Day!

#worldelephantday is a day that brings the world together to help elephants. This year Elephanatics is partnering with the Mara Elephant Project for WED to raise awareness and funds for the Loita Forest that forms the eastern part of the Greater Mara Ecosystem and is home to not just elephants but many rare species. The virgin, old-growth, afro-montane forest is one of the most beautiful and intact forests in East Africa. The forest faces significant threats, particularly from current subdivision of communal to private title deed ownership. This subdivision is causing land use change which accelerates the destruction of the forest jeopardizing the wildlife residing within and the surrounding rangelands. Your much needed donations will be matched and will fund critical activities to protect this area. Donate here. 

Advocacy Alert

Working in collaboration with other global NGOs the Elephanatics team has sent letters to MPs and Federal Ministers regarding the urgent need for a global agreement, taking the form of an additional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.
Supporting the work of Global Initiative to end Wildlife Crime, Elephanatics will continue to engage and advocate for urgent action to be taken to bring to fruition a global treaty to combat the illegal trade by integrating offences into international criminal law. Read more here.

Fun Fact!

How can you tell the difference between elephant and mammoth ivory? To save elephant populations from extinction, the international community banned the sale of their ivory—but selling mammoth ivory remains legal, and the two are difficult to tell apart, especially for non-experts. This leaves a possible loophole for sellers of poached ivory to exploit. Now stable isotope analysis could provide a cheap, rapid option to speed up sample screening and stop the sale of elephant ivory! Read more here.

(Photo credit: Unsplash CCo Public Domain)

Enjoy the rest of the summer everyone!

Elephanatics Team

Elephanatics May 2025 Newsletter

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A Gentle Rumble from Elephanatics 

Greetings Elephant Enthusiasts!

In Vancouver, the days are getting longer, bursting with spring green, and across the globe magnificent elephants continue their ancient journeys. Elephanatics works hard to encourage education about these amazing creatures within schools, the community, and online. We believe that understanding these incredible creatures is the first step towards protecting them. Join us as we explore the fascinating world of elephants!

This Month’s Focus: The Power of Memory

Elephants are renowned for their incredible memories, and it’s more than just folklore! Their complex social structures and survival depend heavily on their ability to remember vital information.

  • Watering Holes and Migration Routes: Elephants can recall the locations of distant watering holes and traditional migration paths, knowledge passed down through generations. This is crucial for navigating vast landscapes and surviving in challenging environments.
  • Social Bonds: They recognize family members and other individuals within their social groups, even after long separations. This memory underpins their intricate social lives and cooperative behaviours.
  • Threat Recognition: Elephants can remember specific threats, such as the scent or appearance of predators or past encounters with humans, allowing them to react appropriately and protect themselves and their young.
  • Learning and Adaptation: Young elephants learn essential survival skills by observing and remembering the actions of their elders, highlighting the importance of matriarchal knowledge.

Did You Know? Studies have shown that elephants can even differentiate between the voices and scents of different human groups, potentially remembering those who pose a threat versus those who are harmless.

Conservation Corner: Understanding Habitat Loss

One of the biggest threats facing elephants today is the loss and fragmentation of their natural habitats. This month, we want to shed light on why this is so critical:

  • Shrinking Spaces: As human populations grow and land is converted for agriculture, infrastructure, and development, the areas available for elephants to roam freely are shrinking.
  • Increased Conflict: Habitat loss often leads to increased encounters between elephants and humans, resulting in conflict over resources and safety for both.
  • Disrupted Migration: When traditional migration routes are blocked, elephants can be cut off from vital resources like water and food, impacting their survival.
  • Ecosystem Impact: The loss of elephant habitat also has a ripple effect on entire ecosystems, as elephants play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity. They are a keystone species.

Upcoming Events:

  • Our African Elephant Specialist, Dr Rene Beyers, will be giving an online presentation May 23, with Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants, VP of Education, Jesse Hildebrand. Don’t miss this exciting educational broadcast on Rewilding and its global importance in saving wildlife and ecosystems!

Wildlife Conservation Conferences / Symposiums coming up in May and July:

  • Canadian Environmental Crime Symposium (CECRN) (May 8th and 9th – 9am-5:30EDT) Launch of the first CECRN. Presented online or in person. Topics include transnational environmental crime, organized crime and environmental crime convergences, poaching, trafficking, crime journalism and more. Registration is free. https://lnkd.in/ere2pB2S
  • Global Conference on Environmental and Biological Science (GCEBS) (May 16-18, 2025): Taking place in Vancouver, Canada. This conference covers a broad range of topics, including conservation biology and biodiversity conservation. To be held at The University of British Columbia, located at 800 Robson Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 3B7, Canada, in Room C215. 
  • Annual International Conference of the Wildlife Disease Association (July 27 – August 1, 2025): This conference focuses on wildlife health and its connection to conservation. Held at 720 Douglas St, Victoria BC, V8W 3M7, Canada.

What Can You Do? Supporting organizations like Elephanatics helps fund initiatives that work to protect and restore elephant habitats through anti-poaching efforts, community engagement, and advocating for conservation policies such as rewilding. 

Get Involved!

  • Share the Knowledge: Help us spread awareness by sharing this newsletter and facts about elephants with your friends and family.
  • Follow Us on Social Media: Stay up-to-date with our latest news, photos, and educational content on Facebook / Instagram / Threads / X and our website elephanatics.org
  • Join our community of dedicated elephant advocates! We need volunteers of all kinds! Contact us @ elephanatics.org/volunteer
  • Consider a Donation: Your contribution, no matter the size, directly supports our educational programs and conservation efforts. Visit elephanatics.org/donate
  • OR donate to the Fran Duthie African Elephant Scholarship. The goal of this scholarship is to provide financial support to Kenyan nationals acquiring a technical certificate, undergraduate or postgraduate (Masters or PhD) degree in an area related to conservation and the protection of wildlife. Donations go to maraelephantproject.org/donate

Thank you for continuing to be a vital part of Elephanatics community. Together, we can ensure a future where elephants thrive.

Until next time, enjoy the longer days and sunshine!

The Team at Elephanatics
elephanaticsinfo@gmail.com

Elephanatics Foundation - Free elephant conservation lesson plans, toolkits for teachers, and persuasive essay resources.

A Triumphant Recognition! A huge Congratulations!

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Group of African elephants in the wild

 

It is with great pride and excitement to announce that Dr. Jake Wall, co-founder of Elephanatics and EarthRanger, has been awarded the Esmond B. Martin Royal Geographic Society Prize for 2025 – an honour recognizing outstanding individual achievement in the pursuit and application of geographical research, with a particular emphasis on wildlife conservation and environmental research studies.

“Dr Wall has been at the forefront of leveraging technology to create freely available geospatial tools for the benefit of wildlife conservation in Africa and beyond for the last 20 years. Jake’s dedication and passion for wildlife is matched only by his tireless efforts to provide conservationists with the tools and methods they need to better protect the natural world.His approach has been methodical and detailed focusing on the benefits, not only to the natural landscape, but the communities that live along side these majestic animals.

As Director of Research and Conservation for the Mara Elephant Project (MEP), Jake established a long-term elephant monitoring programme and developed an application to easily map landscapes, especially fences, which have become a major threat to wildlife movements in the Mara ecosystem. Prior to working with MEP, Jake worked as the Geospatial Scientific Advisor to Save the Elephants for 15 years where he developed a real-time tracking system to visualise GPS data from collared African elephants across the continent. Algorithms scanned the data and, among other things, sent alerts when elephants had moved unusually fast, suggesting panic, or had stopped moving which might indicate a poaching event. In partnership with Save the Elephants and the Allen Institute for AI, this system was expanded into EarthRanger, now used by over 600 sites across 74 countries and growing rapidly.

To complement EarthRanger, Jake is now leading the development of Ecoscope, which provides users with access to ready-made analytics from sources of publicly available remote sensing data. It allows researchers and conservationists to easily engage with the data and generate meaningful outputs, thereby turning conservation data into information to improve decision making, insight and the protection of ecosystems.”

Congratulations Jake! You are very deserving of such a prestigious acknowledgement. Team Elephanatics is extremely proud of all your hard work and devotion to protecting the greatest animal ever created!

The elephants trumpet! 🐘

EarthRanger EcoScope

 

"Elephanatics Foundation - Free elephant conservation lesson plans, toolkits for teachers, and persuasive essay resources."

Canada last again….

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It’s  WorldWildlifeDay 

Canadian organizations are calling on Canada this World Wildlife Day to fulfill its obligations from CITES routine decisions made in 2022 that protect over 500 endangered species.

After two years since the last Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Canada is the only country out of 185 parties that has not updated its control list of endangered species making Canada an open conduit for trafficking in these species.

Canada needs to do better!

Please read letter to Ministers below:

Canada last – again – to protect more than 500 species 3 March 2025

 

*****  UPDATE April 2nd, 2025 – Government amended regulations

 

 

Happy Valentine’s & Family Day!

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Elephanatics Newsletter
February 14th, 2025

Holidays and celebrations are a time to remember and focus on what is important in these uncertain times and what to be grateful for – love, family, friendships and the beautiful natural world around us.
It takes all of us working together on shared goals to advance the protection of elephants, a keystone species, integral to the health and well-being of communities and the larger ecosystem.
Thank you for your enduring support. Together we can continue to make life better for elephants and all wildlife!

We have some LOVE to share with you:

Small Wins for Elephants:

There were two positive outcomes at the 78th meeting of the Standing Committee (SC78) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on the issue of domestic ivory markets. The Standing Committee agreed to  renew important decisions directing Parties with legal domestic ivory markets to report on measures taken to ensure they are not contributing to poaching or illegal trade.
Japan has still not closed its legal trade. Read more here. 

EU, ICCWC, and Civil Society Join Forces to Combat Wildlife Crime

Global International Wildlife crime represents one of the greatest threats to the protection of the world’s endangered and at risk species.  In a win for wildlife protection, a new coalition partnership between GUARD Wildlife (Global United Action to Reduce and Dismantle Organized Wildlife Crime) the EU, and ICCWC, aims to conserve endangered species and biodiversity for future generations. GUARD Wildlife will enhance coordinated responses to combat wildlife crime at the national, regional and international levels and reduce illicit trafficking in wildlife and wildlife products in source, transit and destination countries. Read more here.

The Fran Duthie African Elephant Scholarship Update

 

Established in 2022 the Fran Duthie African Elephant Conservation Scholarship Fund provides financial assistance to Kenyans pursuing conservation.  We are pleased to share an update of our most recent students who have benefited from this capacity building scholarship. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can support the scholarship fund in 2025, please contact us or make a donation today to show your LOVE!

Elephanatics Education! Getting the Word Out!

Education is one of Elephanatics foundational pillars. Teaching and engaging youth is helping to raise a new generation of students who understand the value of biodiversity and of course, the vital importance of elephants. A big thanks to a homeschool teacher in the US who sent us photos of her students who created their own original t-shirt designs and stickers after teaching our ‘Trunks of Hope: T-Shirt design Mission for Elephant Conservation’ lesson plan! Check out our lesson plans!

We would like to show our LOVE and THANKS to one of our volunteers who wrote an article on the work Elephanatics does as an organization. We appreciate your time and efforts, Charlotte!

 

  • Volunteer are always needed. Please contact us if you are interested in helping elephants!

 

 

 

Happy News for the First Month of 2025!

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Elephanatics is very pleased to share the most recent updates from the four recipients of the Fran Duthie Scholarship administered by our partner organization, Mara Elephant Project, in Kenya.

Learn about the exciting work these students are undertaking in conservation related fields. By securing an education for the next generation in wildlife conservation, we are helping to secure a healthy future for our planet as well. We wish them continued success with their programs!

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can support the scholarship fund in 2025, please email us or make a donation today. 

#maraelephantproject

An Update from the Four Recipients of the Fran Duthie Scholarship

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Holidays from Elephanatics!

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Another year over and what have we done?

In the words of Charles Dickens;

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.”

All year long elephant conservation organizations work compassionately and conscientiously to make the world a better place for elephants – proving that, with consistent efforts, the essence of the holiday spirit is manifested through their accomplishments. The whole planet reaps the benefit of natures tending and the charitable giving of those who have supported these efforts. For this, we are extremely grateful and thankful to all of you who have been part of our success in reaching our goals to broaden our outreach in education and advocacy awareness campaigns for elephants during the year.

Throughout 2024 there has been several positive conservation efforts made globally by organizations to increase protection for elephants. Some include:

  • Strengthened Anti-Poaching efforts
  • Habitat Protection and Restoration efforts
  • Collaboration with other conservation organizations
  • Community building efforts
  • Research and Monitoring
  • Technology and Innovation – to include the use of drones as a major asset to help protect and monitor elephants
  • Education outreach
  • Policy advocacy

Elephanatics has been proactive at building out our education efforts by collaborating with our partner organization, Mara Elephant Project, in Kenya. We are very excited about this partnership! We offer a variety of FREE educational resources for teachers, educators and students to utilize. Education is key to understanding the problems elephants encounter on a daily basis from poaching, human-elephant conflict and habitat loss, to creating co-existence strategies to counter these issues. The benefits of collaborating with an organization that deals with these concerns is paramount to building capacity and resilience against further threats to elephants and all wildlife. We also continue to support organizations and policymakers that aim to strengthen the international legal framework to prevent and combat wildlife trafficking.

Our wish for you this holiday season is to find peace in the least expected places, use that peace to bring calm to others, and to forge ahead into 2025 with renewed ambitions and hopes.

We thank you for your continued support!

Best Wishes,

The Elephanatics Team

#BlackFriday and #GivingTuesday

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Greetings fellow elephant lovers!

We have some wonderful ideas on how to give back and support wildlife conservation too!

This #BlackFriday and #GivingTuesday Elephanatics is acknowledging the outstanding work efforts of the Mara Elephant Project in the Maasai Mara, Kenya. They have been a long-standing partner of Elephanatics and are top leaders in elephant conservation in Africa. We are grateful for their protection of wildlife through innovative techniques and technologies advancement to their dynamic co-existence strategies used to create economically resilient communities by cultivating and growing elephant friendly crops! We are proud to support and donate to their organization!

Starting November 29, Black Friday, thanks to the generosity of a donor, Mara Elephant Project is matching all donations up to $50,000 through to #GivingTuesday, December 3rd. The actions that MEP are taking now are paving pathways for future generations of elephants and communities that call the Mara home. Don’t miss the opportunity to help African communities retain their natural heritage by supporting their work. You can purchase their handmade items in link below:
https://linktr.ee/maraelephantproject?utm_source=linktree_admin_share

Double your impact by donating to Mara Elephant Project today to secure a future for elephants. You can also donate to Elephanatics as all our donations go directly to the Mara Elephant Project.

We thank you for your continued love of elephants and that you appreciate the amount of time, money, and effort it takes to protect these magnificent animals. We wish you a very happy, and healthy, holiday season ahead!

The Elephanatics Team!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

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Today is a perfect day to stop and reflect and give thanks to Elephanatics great Team!
Together we have made a significant impact on the preservation of #elephants and #wildlife through a concerted team effort. Thank you for your continued ‘elephantastic’ work and commitment to our natural world.
Enjoy your day everyone!