Category Archives: Elephants

Legal ivory sale drove dramatic increase in elephant poaching, study shows | Environment | The Guardian

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Damian Carrington, Monday 13 June 2016:  Research shows the legal sale in 2008 catastrophically backfired – but two African nations want to repeat the stockpile sell-off.

A huge legal sale of ivory intended to cut elephant poaching instead catastrophically backfired by dramatically increasing elephant deaths, according to new research.

The revelation comes just months before a decision on whether to permit another legal sale and against a backdrop of more African elephants being killed for ivory than are being born. In 2015 alone, 20,000 elephants were illegally killed.

The international trade in ivory was banned in 1989 but, in 2008, China and Japan were allowed to pay $15m for 107 tonnes of ivory stockpiled from elephants that died naturally in four African nations. The intention was to flood the market, crash prices and make poaching less profitable.

But instead, the legal sale was followed by “an abrupt, significant, permanent, robust and geographically widespread increase” in elephant poaching, concluded researchers Prof Solomon Hsiang at the University of California Berkeley and Nitin Sekar at Princeton University, whose work was published on Monday.  Continue Reading: Legal ivory sale drove dramatic increase in elephant poaching, study shows | Environment | The Guardian

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Wildlife Weekly Wrap-up – Defenders of Wildlife Blog

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Weekly Wildlife Wrap-up Stories

Cracking Down on Ivory

This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized new regulations to help protect elephants from the demands of the ivory trade. Previous rules had loopholes that allowed those selling illegal ivory attempt to pass it off as legal. But with the new regulations comes a near-total ban on the commercial trade of ivory in the U.S., putting an end to the trade of products that had served as a cover for illegal ivory. More than 300,000 African elephants are killed for their ivory tusks each year, pushing the species closer to the brink of extinction.

Learn about the new ivory regulations

Back in the Wild Again . . . .

A Bear Doesn’t Care . . . .

Protect the Pallid! . . . .

Source: Wildlife Weekly Wrap-up – Defenders of Wildlife Blog

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Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe | Australia news | The Guardian

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A member of the New South Wales parliament belonging to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party has revealed he once shot and ate an elephant while hunting in Zimbabwe.Robert Borsak has previously admitted shooting an elephant during an African hunting tour, with a picture of the state senator kneeling beside the kill sparking controversy.

According to the Zambezi Society, a conservation group, elephant populations in Zimbabwe have fallen dramatically in the past 15 years, particularly in the Middle Zambezi Valley, where last January there were around 11,500 elephants, down from 18,000 in 2001.

Source: Australian state MP admits eating elephant he shot in Zimbabwe | Australia news | The Guardian

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Elephants could vanish from one of Africa’s key reserves within six years | Environment | The Guardian

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Elephants could disappear from one of Africa’s most important wildlife reserves within six years unless industrial scale poaching is stopped and mining is brought under control, the WWF has said.

Selous national park, a world heritage site in southern Tanzania, has lost an average of almost 2,500 elephants a year since the 1970s. But it has now reached a crtitical stage with only about 15,000 left, according to the latest census.

“The population is at an historic low. and urgent measures are required to protect the remaining animals and return the population to a stable and sustainable size. If this trend continues, elephants could vanish from Selous by early 2022,” says the WWF in a new study.

Source: Elephants could vanish from one of Africa’s key reserves within six years | Environment | The Guardian

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As Extinction Looms, Elephants DC Calls for Tighter International Controls To Protect Elephants

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WASHINGTON DC — “Elephants DC advocated for tighter legal controls to protect elephants on Saturday, Nov. 14 in America’s capitol city. At a two-day conference on international law and wildlife wel…”  More at: elephantsdcblog.wordpress.com

GR:  Perhaps everyone in the U. S. should donate their ivory collection to China. We could set up a distribution center that would require a shipping fee and a small handling fee. That would destroy the poaching industry.

US REFUSES BRITISH MUSEUM’S IVORY ART

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British Museum’s ivory icons denied US entry for loan show
by VICTORIA STAPLEY-BROWN, The Art Newspaper
1 July 2015

The US Fish and Wildlife Service blocked the importation of six Byzantine ivory pieces due to come to the US on a loan from the British Museum for the travelling exhibition Saints and Dragons: Icons from Byzantium to Russia. The show, currently on view at the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts and due to travel to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, this autumn, centres on icons that are normally hidden away in storage at the London museum.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.amaraelephantblog.com

GR:  Perhaps historically and artistically important ivory artifacts should be duplicated and then destroyed.

Last Days for Rhinos and Elephants

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Purchases of small trinkets support organized crime and wipe elephants from the face of the Earth forever.

Tisha Wardlow's avatarFight for Rhinos

This extraordinary video puts the killing of our elephants and rhinos into perspective. Ultimately it all starts or stops with YOU as the consumer. Please watch and share.

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The WWFs report on the shockingly rapid decline in wildlife should surely move us to action | Michelle Nijhuis

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We must all take responsibility for combating climate change.

Source: www.theguardian.com

GR:  This will not happen. First, the few that profit from the industries causing the problems feel insulated and protected from the consequences.  Second, the governments and political leaders hope the wealthy will give them enough of the wealth to achieve the same protection.

Ricky Gervais calls for public to hand in ivory and other wildlife products

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 GR:  Since politicians can’t oppose profit-making in any industry, leadership must come from other sectors of society.  The actor and comedian Ricky Gervais has earned our gratitude. 

“Ricky Gervais has asked people to hand in wildlife products they may have at home, such as ivory carvings, to help tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

“The comedian’s call is in support of a drive by the Metropolitan police to encourage Londoners to donate unwanted wildlife items such as rhino horn and big cat furs, in a move the force’s wildlife crime unit believes will raise awareness of the problem.

“The illegal wildlife trade has been estimated at being worth $7-23bn annually, leading to over 20,000 African elephants being killed by poachers each year and the number of rhinos killed in South Africa in 2013 jumping by 50% on the year before.

“Officials of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species are meeting in Geneva this week to discuss plans to stem the illegal wildlife trade. In February, 46 countries met in London and signed a declaration to tackle the trade.