We compiled data from our research (2006-2025) along with published accounts dating back to 1975 on the desert-dwelling elephant population in our study area of Skeleton Coast National Park and western Kunene region. This includes the Hoarusib River, Hoanib River, and Uniab River sub populations. Our analysis of the data reveal the profound influence that human-caused elephant mortality has had on the population over this time period. An initial precipitous decline occurred due to wartime poaching in the 1980s. That was followed by four decades of low-level but demographically significant human-caused mortality of adult elephants, which in addition to natural mortality and a low reproductive rate, prevented recovery of these sub-populations to pre-war levels (Figure 1). However, while there are now fewer elephants in the study area than during the 1980s war period, our recent data and observations reveal the following promising trends: 1) there have not been any documented human-caused mortalities in the study area since 2021; 2) ten calves were born in the Hoanib River sub-population in the time period May 2023-July 2024, and nine are still surviving (as of May 2025); 3) a recent (April 2023) migration of the entire Hoanib sub-population over to the lower Hoarusib River, and their subsequent return to the Hoanib the following week, indicates that knowledge of this migration route has not been lost in the Hoanib subpopulation; 4) communities and NGOs are giving serious consideration to a potential translocation of elephants into the Hoarusib River to bolster elephant numbers there; 5) an Hoanib elephant calf sustained an injury and was subsequently treated in the field by a MEFT veterinarian; 6) three young bulls from Otjikondavirongo area visited the Hoanib River briefly in Feb 2025.