Shoba Rao, News Corp Australia Network
A breathtaking new photographic book backed by the Royal Family is calling for an end to the illegal slaughter of African elephants.
The Last Elephants, compiled by Don Pinnock and Colin Bell, features 250 stunning colour photographs taken by some of the world’s most experienced wildlife photographers.
It contains a poignant foreword note from the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, who says when his daughter Charlotte turns 25, the African elephant could be gone from the wild.
“We cannot let this happen,” he writes.
“I am not prepared to be part of a generation that lets these iconic species disappear and have to explain to our children why we lost this battle when we had the tools to win it.”
He also says the crisis was not just about animals but about people.
“We have the opportunity to end the mixed messages we have sent for too long about the value and desirability of wildlife products,” he says.
“We need to make it quite clear and broadcast widely that ivory is a symbol of destruction, not of luxury and not something that anyone needs to buy or sell.”
The book features words from scientists, rangers, conservationists and local researchers, who detail their experiences with the impact of elephant killings.
Among the book’s majestic photographs are images taken by John Vosloo, a city lawyer, who now lives near South Africa’s Addo National Park where he can sometimes see elephants outside his window.
Other images include those taken by wildlife photographer Tami Walker who captured the movement of elephants in Kruger National Park.
Resident photographer Ross Couper captured a baby elephant raising its trunk on his travels as a safari guide.
Bobby-Jo Vial took photos of elephants in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania, that are almost exclusively male.
A study suggested they may be spill-overs from the surrounding highlands.
Grant Atkinson, who is based in Cape Town, found elephants at the Chobe River in Namibia, and Deon De Villiers, who has managed Africa’s luxury safari camps, shared his photos he took in Botswana.
Safari lodge manager Pieter Ras captured local elephants in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, and photographer and writer Scott Ramsay shot his images in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools.
Hannes Lochner captured one of the more haunting images of elephants at a rare waterhole in Chobe, Botswana.
The book was inspired by devastating findings from the Great Elephant Census of 2016, which found there were fewer than 450,000 of the animals in Africa today. There were up to five million just 100 years ago.
Figures show on average, an elephant is killed every 15 to 20 minutes while the species face extinction from a wide network of poachers, criminal syndicates, warlords and traffickers.
The book documents where elephant populations have disappeared and current plans to conserve what’s left.
Broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough tells the authors: “We are responsible for the problem, and we must be held responsible for the solution.
“It will indeed be a very sad indictment on our species if rhinos and elephants are no more, and that day will come sooner than we think if we do not take action.”
