New York City is actually America’s largest ivory market, with the majority of it illegally coming through New Jersey. On August 5, Governor Chris Christie signed a bill that would (finally) ban the sale of ivory in New Jersey. And on World Elephant Day, New York Governor Chris Cuomo signed a ”new law to prevent the trade of illegal ivory articles by strengthening criminal and civil penalties for buyers and sellers whose actions are endangering elephant populations worldwide.”
...Kenji looks like a tiny elephant Between 2002 and 2013, the number of elephants in Central Africa decreased by 65 percent.
The ivory trade has resulted in less than 40,000 Asian elephants and less than 400,000 African elephants left in the world.
One elephant tusk can get as much as $200,000 in China.
In 2013, poachers poisoned 300 elephants with cyanide in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park so they could profit from the ivory of the elephants’ tusks. It was called the ”worst single massacre in Southern Africa for 25 years,” according to IUCN. Ivory trade was technically made illegal in 1989.
An estimated 35,000 elephants were killed in Africa last year alone. 
Elephants are vegetarians and spend the majority of their days, about 16 hours, foraging for food and eating it.
To stay healthy, an adult elephant needs to consume at least 55 gallons of water a day.
Elephants have a sense of humor, which makes sense, because if you can grieve, you should probably be able to joke sometimes, too.
Despite having some really tough skin, elephants can still suffer from sunburns. To protect themselves, they throw sand on their backs and heads.
Unlike many animals, elephants are smart enough to recognize themselves in the mirror.
There are two different breeds of elephants: African and Asian, although there is speculation that a third breed, a forest-dwelling African elephant that is “genetically distinct” from the other two breeds, exists.
In the wild, elephants can live to be in their 40's. In captivity, they can live even longer.
