Trunk:

Elephants have around 40,000 muscles in their trunks. An elephant’s trunk acts as its mouth, nose and hands all in one. It is used for breathing, smelling, picking up objects, touching and hugging. It is a very powerful yet delicate instrument, strong enough to break a branch from a tree and yet delicate enough to be able to pick up a blade of grass. To drink, an elephant sucks water into its trunk like a hose and blows it into its mouth. The trunk also lifts food into its mouth. Elephants are great swimmers and can use their trunks like snorkels!

Tusks:

Tusks are the only two front teeth of an elephant and grow throughout an elephant’s lifetime. Used to dig and find food, to play and fight, tusks are important tools although some elephants are born without one or both. Made of ivory, which has long been coveted by certain cultures, elephants have sadly been poached (killed) for their tusks.

In recent years, many people have asked if tusked can be dyed/painted to help protect elephants. However, practically speaking, as with our own teeth, ivory (or dentine) is a very hard substance so, in the case of dying the tusks, it would be incredibly difficult to ensure that the colour permeates the surface. Without this, the dye on the outer surface could be buffed or sanded away, thereby not acting as a deterrent.

Added to this, anesthetising an elephant can be a dangerous procedure for the animal and as tusks grow at approximately 2cm per year, meaning that this process of staining the tusks would have to be repeated many times throughout an elephant’s life. Instead, we believe that changing human behaviour (not modifying elephants) is the only long term solution and work through Anti-Poaching and awareness campaigns to help put an end to ivory poaching.