Educational Media Reviews Online

This documentary examines the wondrous African elephants in their natural habitat of Africa. The short film, shot mainly in Meru National Park in Kenya, is extraordinary in its film footage of the giant beasts. These animals mature at age 13, live to 60 and can weigh up to 8 tons. They roam around in tightly bonded family groups. For 4,000 years the African elephants have been slaughtered for their ivory. The ivory trade peaked in 1914 when 1,000 tons were exported. The more recent problems facing these animals are caused by mankind as it advances across the African continent.

Interviews with a park ranger, zoologist, and anthropologist explain that the elephants are competing with the humans for food, water, and land. The “giant lawnmowers” as they are referred to, eat any manner of vegetation they can lay their trunks on. So they are literally eating themselves out of house and home. Poachers are the other serious threat to the survival of the elephants. The elephants seek the safe sanctuaries of the national parks to elude the poachers.

Keeping the elephants in national parks where they are the stars of the tourist industry eventually will wear out as the vegetation is depleted. Culling, or capturing and killing them is highly controversial as well. Elephants are said to be intelligent and with their close family ties, there is real concern about the emotional impact of the death of a family member. So experts in the field are in a quandary about what to do to prevent them from becoming extinct.

This fascinating, high quality film is recommended for libraries with collections about animals and Africa.