August 12 – World Elephant Day

World Elephant Day is celebrated on August 12. The idea of celebrating World Elephant Day belongs to Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims and Michael Clarke of Canazwest Pictures and Sivaporn Dardarananda, Secretary General of the Thai Elephant Reintroduction Foundation. The first official celebration took place in 2012 under the leadership of Patricia Sims. On this occasion, the film "Return to the Forest", shot by Sims and Clark, was presented, which tells about the reintroduction of Asian elephants into their natural habitat in Thailand.

The purpose of the holiday is to draw public attention to the problem of extermination of elephants. Both African and Asian elephants are listed in the International Red List as species close to extinction.

The main reason for the decrease in the number of elephants is the cutting down of forests – the natural habitat of elephants, as well as hunting them by humans for tusks and meat, persecution due to the damage caused by elephants to crops.

Today, Mykolaiv Zoo is home to two Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) – Dinkar and Shanti, who arrived in 2019 from Hungary. The animals were transferred under the European Endangered Species Programme.

If you want to see our elephants, we invite you for a summer walk to Mykolaiv Zoo!