F. Maisels/WCS
The secretive African forest elephant is coming out of the shadows. The latest IUCN assessment of the species, which lives in dense rainforest, concludes there are over 135,000 of them, 16 per cent more than at the last count in 2016. This increase is mainly due to a more accurate counting method: analysing elephant faeces for DNA. Despite this, the species is still critically endangered due to poaching.
