Seeds of various plants will go through the elephant's digestive tract and eventually pass through in the animal's droppings (likely in a new location where they will sprout), thus helping to maintain the spread and biodiversity of the forests.

[2] Elephas (Loxodonta) cyclotis was the scientific name proposed by Paul Matschie in 1900 who described the skulls of a female and a male specimen collected by the Sanaga River in southern Cameroon.

Phylogenetic analysis of the mitochondrial genome of nine specimens from museum collections indicates that it is an African forest elephant whose diminutive size or early maturity is due to environmental conditions.

[10] A 2015 study alternately suggested that fully grown African forest elephant males in optimal condition were only on average 2.2 metres (7.2 ft) tall and 2,000 kilograms (4,400 lb) in weight, with the largest individuals (representing less than 1 in 100,000 as a proportion of the total population) no bigger than 2.75 metres (9.0 ft) tall and 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb) in weight.

A larger tusk measuring 2.96 metres (9.7 ft) long and weighing 70 kilograms (150 lb) has been recorded, but this may belong to a forest-bush elephant hybrid.

[20] Nonetheless, it was estimated that the population of African forest elephants in Central Africa had declined by around 86% (in the 31 years preceding 2021) due to poaching and loss of habitat.

[20] They are also distributed in the evergreen moist deciduous Upper Guinean forests in Ivory Coast and Ghana, in West Africa.

[27] Groups of up to 20 individuals were observed in the Dzanga-Sangha Complex of Protected Areas, comprising adult cows, their daughters and subadult sons.

[28] They use a complex network of permanent trails that pass through stands of fruit trees and connect forest clearings with mineral licks.

[36] In the Cuvette Centrale, 14 of 18 megafaunal tree species depend on seed dissemination by African forest elephants, including wild mango (Irvingia gabonensis), Parinari excelsa and Tridesmostemon omphalocarpoides.

[45] Additionally, certain events may provoke a behavioral change, as evidenced by lowered levels of vocalizations in response to gunfire sounds related to poaching.

[53] Females are polyestrous, meaning they are capable of conceiving multiple times a year, which is a reason why they do not appear to have a breeding season.

Based on the maturity, fertility, and gestation rates, African forest elephants have the capacity to increase their population by 5% annually under ideal conditions.

It is unknown how long the active hunting of elephants in the region has been practised, and it may have only begun as a response for the demand for ivory beginning in the 19th century or earlier.

[55] Elephants are traditionally hunted using spears, typically to stab at the lower abdomen (as is done among the Mbuti) or knees, both of which are effective at rendering the animal immobile.

[2] Because of a spike in poaching, the African forest elephant was declared Critically Endangered by the IUCN in 2021 after it was found that the population had decreased by more than 80% over 3 generations.

Civil unrest, human encroachment, and habit fragmentation leaves some elephants confined to small patches of forest without sufficient food.

In January 2014, International Fund for Animal Welfare undertook a relocation project at the request of the Ivory Coast government, moving four elephants from Daloa to Assagny National Park.

[56] Genetic analysis of confiscated ivory showed that 328 tusks of African forest elephants seized in the Philippines between 1996 and 2005 originated in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo; 2,871 tusks seized in Hong Kong between 2006 and 2013 originated in Tridom, the tri-national Dja-Odzala-Minkébé protected area complex and the adjacent Dzanga Sangha Reserve in the Central African Republic.

[57] The hard ivory of the African forest elephant makes for more enhanced carving and fetches a higher price on the black market.

Premium quality bachi, a traditional Japanese plucking tool used for string instruments, is contrived exclusively from African forest elephant tusks.

In the impenetrable and often trackless expanses of the rain forests of the Congo Basin, poaching is extremely difficult to detect and track.

[58] Late in the 20th century, conservation workers established a DNA identification system to trace the origin of poached ivory.

Due to poaching to meet high demand for ivory, the African forest elephant population approached critical levels in the 1990s and early 2000s.

[61] In May 2013, Sudanese poachers killed 26 elephants in the Central African Republic's Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site.

[62][63] Communications equipment, video cameras, and additional training of park guards were provided following the massacre to improve protection of the site.

[66] On 19 August 2020, Guyvanho, a poacher who killed over 500 African forest elephants in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, was convicted to 30 years in prison for charges of poaching and others.

Killing for bushmeat in Central Africa has evolved into an international business in recent decades with markets reaching New York and other major cities of the United States, and the industry is still on the rise.

This database includes results from aerial surveys, dung counts, interviews with local people, and data on poaching.

This listing banned commercial international trade of wild African elephants and their parts and derivatives by countries that signed the CITES agreement.