African forest elephants are a distinct species from savanna elephants facing severe poaching pressure. Their secretive forest habitat makes conservation and welfare monitoring challenging.
Forest elephants suffering from poaching face terror, injury, and death at human hands. The social disruption from poaching — removal of matriarchs, separation of family groups, and calf orphaning — causes lasting psychological trauma in surviving individuals. Elephants show grief responses to dead family members and long-term behavioural disruption after major losses. Conservation interventions that reduce poaching pressure protect both individual welfare and population viability.