I was wondering this because, my Mother told me a fairy tale about how my ancestors once survived a particularly bad famine by eating an elephant that drowned in our village River(The story is too long to transcribe here). Where it gets interesting is that till today you can still see the Elephant/an Elephant skull in my "clan square"(closest English translation).

Elephants are nearly now extinct in my country as a whole, with remaining numbers now estimated to be around 350. My first instinct was to wonder what happened them and right now my first theory is they were hunted into near extinction to service the Transatlantic and Trans-Sahara Ivory trade from Benin. That thought led me to think of other effects the age of exploration/colonization had on other ecosystems. With some positives like the introduction of Cassava and Maize, e.t.c and negatives like the over-cultivation of cloves leading to the Pemba Isles of Zanzibar becoming infertile and the Bison extinction e.t.c

I was wondering if they were any Historians who specialized in this study?