#pouching

A kangaroo comforting their smaller friend after she has a bad day. Very soft and cuddly.

Content: size difference, pouch "vore", comfort, nb kangaroo "pred", undefined smaller female "prey"

It's crowded in there, lots of fellow joeys snuggled up in the warm, fuzzy pouch, but there's always plenty of room in mama roo for you to have some space to yourself. The roo's bouncing feels gentle from in here, a comforting rhythm like rocking a cradle...

​Once Considered Exotic Quarry and Beasts of Burden, Elephants are Now Viewed as Treasures in Need of Saving.

— By Christine Dell'Amore | Photos Curated By Crystal Henry | Published: April 13, 2023 | Sunday July 20, 2025

Since the first elephant story was published in National Geographic in 1906, the magazine has taken different angles on covering the pachyderms, from hunter’s quarry to beasts of burden to species that need saving. As time went on, technology also advanced, helping photographers capture more intimate moments. Michael ‘‘Nick’’ Nichols made this photograph of orphan elephants splashing in a human-made water hole in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park by mounting a camera to a pole, which allowed him to get a closer view of the elephants but still maintain a physical distance. Daily mud baths are key to elephant hygiene, offering the animals effective sun protection while also cleansing their skin of bugs and ticks. Photograph By Michael Nichols, National Geographic Image Collection

Adolescent elephants tussle in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve in this image by Nick Nichols, one of the first wildlife photographers to extensively document African elephants in the wild. Such play develops social skills in the young animals, as well as confidence and strength. This image was published in the magazine in September 2008. Photograph By Michael Nichols, National Geographic Image Collection

Eliza Scidmore, the first female writer, photographer, and board member for National Geographic, has another accomplishment to her credit: She was the first person to publish a photograph of an elephant in the magazine, in December 1906.

An inveterate traveler who brought Japan’s famous cherry blossoms to the U.S. capital, Scidmore had photographed Asian elephants being rounded up in Siam (now Thailand) to serve as work animals for the king.

A year later, in 1907, the magazine published nighttime photos of African elephants near Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro. The photographer, Carl Schillings, worked in the style of George Shiras, aka Grandfather Flash—the first person to use camera traps and flash photography to capture images of wildlife.

But it wasn’t until 1912 that the publication ran its first feature story on elephants, part of a well-publicized hunting expedition, led by former president Teddy Roosevelt and photographed by Carl Akeley, a taxidermist for P.T. Barnum, founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Looking back on a century of the magazine’s reporting on pachyderms, Julia Andrews, an editor for the National Geographic Image Collection, says there are “definite trends that would shift from decade to decade.”

For instance, Andrews says, in the early years the prevailing theme was elephants as the hunted: “The story was very much ‘man with his trophy.’ ”

Elephants kick up ash from a wildfire in South Sudan’s Sudd wetland in a previously unpublished image taken in 2012. Pastoralists often set these fires, adding the threat of habitat loss to the ever present risk of ivory poaching. Photograph By George Steinmetz, National Geographic Image Collection

In the 1920s and 1930s, as zoos became more popular and piqued curiosity about wild animals, stories emphasized elephants’ roles as beasts of burden. In 1928, King Kong directors Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack wrote and photographed a story about taming African elephants, claiming “the mighty beast, having submitted to man’s superior intelligence, serves him well.”

Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, smaller cameras made field reporting easier, and African safari culture blossomed. By this period, National Geographic’s reporting on elephants had changed to “the idea of you going into the habitat of the animal, not the other way around,” Andrews says.

When Quentin Keynes—Charles Darwin’s great-grandson—photographed a story in Kenya in 1951, it was titled “Africa’s Uncaged Elephants” and shot from a custom tree house he built on the savanna. The camera traps first created by Shiras also began to evolve into smaller, more sensitive units that could capture the daily lives of wild animals as never before.

A trapped elephant struggles in thick mud in Kenya’s Nannapa Conservancy. Passing herders alerted the conservancy manager to his plight, and veterinarians and rangers launched a rescue. Using a tractor, towropes, and their hands, they freed the exhausted animal. The image was published in July 2021. Photograph By David Chancellor, National Geographic Image Collection

It’s feeding time for hungry orphans at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in northern Kenya. Established in 2016, the refuge is staffed by local Samburus; some are warriors who once feared the creatures. This image was published in August 2017. Photograph By Ami Vitale, National Geographic Image Collection

This image of savanna elephants moving across the Serengeti plains was published in National Geographic in October 2012. In 2021, scientists identified two species of African elephants: savanna elephants, which are endangered, and forest elephants, which are critically endangered. Photograph By Michael Nichols, National Geographic Image Collection

Elephants wade through grass near a lake in Kenya’s Amboseli National Park, leaving trails in their wake. This photograph, which appeared in the magazine in September 2005, was taken after a worldwide ban on ivory trade had boosted Kenya’s elephant numbers. Photograph By George Steinmetz, National Geographic Image Collection

A Conservation Shift

Barely any elephant stories were published in the 1970s. But the 1980s brought with them an era of conservation reporting, starting with the November 1980 article “Africa’s Elephants: Can They Survive?” by Explorer Iain Douglas-Hamilton and his wife, Oria

National Geographic Explorers Beverly and Dereck Joubert began what would be decades of work observing and studying the African elephant with their May 1991 piece, “Eyewitness to an Elephant Wake.” The story was one of the first to show that elephants have an “emotional inner life”—that like humans, elephants grieve their dead, says Lori Franklin, an editor at the National Geographic Image Collection.

A forest elephant tries to defend itself after it was hit by a train in Gabon’s Lopé National Park. Park officials decided the animal was too severely wounded to be saved, and after it was killed, the meat was distributed to local people. A changing climate—warmer nights and less rainfall—may be reducing food options for forest elephants, as a story in the May 2022 issue reported. Photograph By Jasper Doest, National Geographic Image Collection

The magazine’s coverage of elephants has had meaningful impacts on society, Franklin says. “The Hidden Cost of Wildlife Tourism,” a 2019 cover story photographed by Kirsten Luce, revealed abuse of captive elephants; that led to a massive petition and eventual release of a well-known, injured animal into a sanctuary.

The three-part magazine series “Megatransect: Across 1,200 Miles of Untamed Africa on Foot”—the saga of Explorer Mike Fay’s journey across the middle of the continent, photographed by Michael “Nick” Nichols—ultimately led to the creation of 13 national parks in Gabon and three in the Republic of the Congo.

A male elephant grabs an evening snack in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. Most of the park’s elephants were killed for their ivory, used to buy weapons during the nation’s 15-year civil war, which ended in 1992. With poaching controlled, the population is recovering, as photographer Charlie Hamilton James revealed in the May 2019 issue. Photograph By Charlie Hamilton James, National Geographic Image Collection

Into the 21st century, National Geographic continues to focus on elephants’ decline. All three species—the African savanna elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant—are now endangered, mostly because of ivory poaching and habitat loss.

But there are also stories of hope, with photographers seeking out solutions to the crisis. Nick Nichols’s photographs of raincoat-adorned orphaned elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the world’s most successful rescue center for baby elephants, were especially popular with readers. Ami Vitale’s reporting on warriors who once feared elephants but now protect them, in Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve, also highlighted how change can happen for the better.

In the May 2023 cover story “The Elephant Next Door,” Brent Stirton’s photographs illustrate how Asian elephants and people are jostling for space in a rapidly urbanizing world.

National Geographic’s century of reporting on these “magnificent” species is an unrivaled achievement, Andrews believes: “We are educating people about elephants, and in the end, we should be very proud of that.”