The Elephants of Cameroon

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• Learn more about animal migration, animals, elephants, emerging readers, endangered species, and science.

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Track elephants in Cameroon, Africa, on an interactive web site sponsored by Field Trip Earth, a program of the North Carolina Zoological Society. Students can access up-to-the-minute data on the locations of the elephants being tracked. Also provided is information about elephants, Cameroon, and conservation efforts as well as a collection of lesson plans from various curriculum areas that use the resources on the site. The site features lesson plans and maps created by North Carolina teachers to facilitate ecosystem studies, story reading, and data analysis. Students and teachers can ask experts in the field questions about the elephants, Cameroon, and Africa, and review journal entries about the elephant project.

The N.C. Zoological Park and the World Wildlife Fund-Cameroon began a study of human-elephant interaction in May 1998. As part of a WWF conservation program, the zoo provides veterinary expertise in anesthetizing elephants to place tracking collars on them. The zoo also pays for the collars, receivers to track the elephants on the ground, and satellite time to track the elephants from space. The project’s goal is to better understand elephant migratory and land-use behaviors in order to develop sustainable use policies for managing Cameroon’s remaining elephant habitat areas.