Savanna elephant numbers are only a quarter of their expected values
Fig 4
Of 73 protected areas assessed, 72 had a deficit of elephants compared to ecological benchmarks.
(A) Subtracting predicted ecological benchmark population size from corresponding recent population estimates yields deficit or surplus estimates for each protected area, illustrated by size and color of circles (net deficit = 729,505). (B) A frequency distribution, where x-axis represents bin centers, illustrates that few populations have large deficits, while most are missing fewer than 12,000 elephants. See Table F in S1 File for the 95% prediction intervals of population deficits/surpluses.