Washington: A new research paper has warned that elephants face the thereat of extinction by 2020 because of a high fatality rate due to poaching. African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989.

But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington (UW) conservation biologist has contended that it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals' plight.