Sharjah 24 – AFP: Decades of poaching and shrinking habitats have devastated elephant populations across Africa, conservationists said Thursday, warning that one sub-species found in rainforests was a step away from extinction.

In an update of its "Red List" of threatened species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlighted the broad deterioration of the situation for elephants in most of Africa.

The number of elephants in the wild in Africa had fallen by more than 86 percent over three decades, and were now considered "critically endangered" -- just a step away from becoming extinct, it said.

The population of the African savanna elephants had meanwhile decreased by at least 60 percent over the past 50 years, IUCN said, with the Red List now listing that species as "endangered".

Previously, elephants on the continent were assessed as a single species considered vulnerable, but not endangered.

"Today's new IUCN Red List assessments of both African elephant species underline the persistent pressures faced by these iconic animals," IUCN chief Bruno Oberle said in a statement.

Just half a century ago, around 1.5 million elephants roamed across Africa, but in the most recent large-scale assessment of population numbers in 2016, there were only around 415,000 remaining.

"These are really sharp declines," said Benson Okita-Ouma of Save the Elephants and the co-chair of the IUCN African Elephant Specialist Group.

While the next full assessment of African elephant population numbers is not expected until 2022 or 2023, he told AFP that the declines seen already should really sound "alarm bells".