Elephant Parade

Over 250 elephants can be found across London - pictured, Green Park - in a public art exhibition aiming to raise money for elephants throughout the world. The model elephants are part of the Elephant Parade, organised by the Elephant Family charity that have set up similar events in other countries to raise awareness of the plight that faces many of planet's beloved creatures. Each of the models the size of an adolescent elephant and decorated by an artist or celebrity; they will be auctioned at Sotheby's with proceeds going to the charity. It is hard not to think of Babar, even if that is another European Capital, and I enjoy watching kids, photographers and tourists climb about the statues.

At the turn of the 20th century, it is estimated that there are 5-10 million elephants, but hunting and habitat destruction had reduced their numbers to 400,000 to 500,000 by the end of the century (source: Microsoft Encarta). While elephant populations are increasing in parts of Southern and eastern Africa, other African nations report a decrease in their elephant populations by as much as two-thirds, and populations in even some protected areas face elimination (WWF; National Geographic). Chad has a decades-old history of poaching of elephants, which has caused the regions population, which once exceeded 300,000 in 1970, drop to 10,000 today. In Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo, there were 348 left in 2006.

My family saw elephants in Kenya and Tanzania in 1989 when Grace organised a trip that remains a memory of a lifetime. We stopped at the Ngorongoro Crater, Masai Mara National Park and vast Serengeti during the wildebeest migration; we also visited The Great Rift Valley which is a continuous geographic trench that cuts 3,700 miles from northern Syria to Central Mozambique in East Africa. Richard and Mary Leakey studied human evolution in this part of East Africa and came away with "Lucy", a hominid ancestor dating back 3 million years. I was there, dude. We climbed Mt Kilimanjaro whose glacier is nearly gone (bare in mind a glacier three degrees south of the equator remarkable). I almost did not make it to the top but forced a second attempt so I would not be here, now, thinking-- some day. A main consideration for my parents was Malawi where they spent the first years of their marriage as Peace Corps volunteers. It was memorable in every way.