Links Important populations of African elephants occur in Tanzania, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, and probably in Congo, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although African elephant populations started to decline in West Africa much earlier, the 1960s to the end of the 1980s saw dramatic declines continent-wide, particularly in eastern and central Africa, both within and outside protected areas. Populations in southern Africa currently appear to be stable or increasing. It is difficult to get accurate estimates of elephant populations.
Aerial surveys can be precise but are only suitable for counting elephants in savanna habitats.
It is much more difficult to count elephants in forests, where techniques such as extrapolating elephant numbers from dung pile counts are used. Historically, much information on elephant numbers was speculative or poorly quantified. Most surveys were done in protected areas, even though most elephant range occurs outside them. Seasonal migrations and cross-border populations add to the difficulty of obtaining accurate results. In 1979, elephant numbers across the continent were estimated at 1.3 million, but there is much controversy over this figure.