We’re used to thinking of them as rare and endangered, but in South Africa there are so many elephants, the government may have to cull some. South Africa’s elephant population has doubled to around 17,000 since culling was stopped in 1995. Because they eat so much, some people think the big creatures are threatening other animals and rare plants. A cull is when people decide to reduce the number of animals in a population by killing some of them. As well as the cull, moving herds of the elephants to other places has also been suggested. If nothing is done, the number of elephants in South Africa is expected to double again to about 34,000 by 2020. As most of the land in South Africa set aside for conserving animals is fenced off, too many elephants could be a problem. An elephant eats hundreds of kilos of plants a day, which could damage rare species. Other animals find it very hard to get food.