Wildlife Experts: "Elephants Are Shrinking"

Elephants are getting smaller, wildlife experts have discovered.

Year on year, through the scientists’ analysis, they have seen a remarkable phenomenon occuring where the large mammals are reducing their size by over 5% per annum.

Within 30 years, scientists say that fully grown adult elephants around the world would be about 3 feet high, at the current rate of shrinkage.

“This is truly remarkable and quite worrying for the elephant community. If they eventually shrink to just above 3 foot height, there could be serious repercussions for the sustainability of the elephant population around the world. These elephants would be vulnerable to attack from predators like hyenas and even warthogs,” professor Giles Blandwidth, who is in charge of the research project in South Africa, told New Scientist magazine.

“We’re doing our best to find out why elephants are shrinking. It is a race against time before they get too tiny to find the solution to this momentous problem,” the professor added.