who is killing dumbo?
catefrances
Posts: 29,003
.. and more importantly WHY?
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... nts-201108
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 140219.htm
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/keny ... blem-kenya
New wave of elephant poaching in Kenya
An influx of Chinese workers and Asian demand for ivory leads to increased poaching.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Chinese workers are buying ivory tusks hacked from the carcasses of illegally hunted elephants in a banned trade that could decimate herds in one of Kenya’s most famous wildlife reserves, a recent report has concluded.
Thousands of African elephants are killed every year to supply a market largely driven by Asian demand. Last year the first legal ivory auction in nine years was held and more than 100 tons of elephant tusks were sold exclusively to Chinese and Japanese buyers who fought to outbid each other in multi-million dollar sales.
The resurrection of such auctions and the increase in Chinese workers in Africa have sparked fears about the potential impact on a species that has only recently recovered from illegal poaching.
“The situation for elephants in the [Amboseli] area has become critical over the past year and more particularly over the past four months,” warned the report by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, run by veteran conservationist Dr. Cynthia Moss, who has been working in the 150-square-mile reserve in southern Kenya for 37 years.
Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation at Kenya Wildlife Service, said Kenya lost 98 elephants to poaching in 2008, double the number killed in 2007, but he said the news from Amboseli was particularly worrying. “This is the first time in a decade that we've seen poaching in Amboseli," he said.
The recent arrest of a Kenyan and a Tanzanian highlights the seriousness of the problem. The pair pled guilty in March to illegal possession of ivory after they were caught carrying 1,129 pounds of tusks, extracted from about 35 to 40 elephants. The seizure is one of the largest in East Africa in years.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) also warned that poaching is on the rise following the slaughter of five elephants in six weeks in the nearby Tsavo National Park.
“Since the one-off ivory sales from Southern Africa countries late last year, we have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo,” said Jonathan Kirui, assistant director at Tsavo.
Omondi said the wildlife service links the upsurge in poaching with the growing Chinese presence in the country. Chinese workers have flooded the continent, constructing roads, railways and dams in infrastructure-for-minerals deals.
.“There are two Chinese road camps in the general area,” said the Amboseli Trust report. “We are told by our informants that they are buying ivory [and] bush meat.”
The international ivory trade was banned in 1989, but in the decade before that Africa’s elephant population plummeted to 600,000 from 1.3 million. In Kenya the effect of the trade was even worse, with 85 percent of the elephant population killed off in the 15 years before the ban came into force.
Herds have recovered dramatically since then but ivory remains a commodity highly prized in the Far East, where it is used in medicines, ornaments and family seals.
Elephant ivory sold on Kenya’s black market fetches about 3,000 shillings per kilogram (about $18 per pound). The tusks of a large male bull elephant can weigh more than 110 pounds each, making poaching an attractive earner for poor rural Kenyans, many of whom live in grinding poverty and rely on subsistence farming for survival.
Late last year Interpol coordinated a sting operation on illegal wildlife traffickers that led to the seizure in Kenya of 113 pieces of ivory weighing 787 pounds. Of the 36 poachers and brokers arrested, three were Chinese.
Amboseli is one of Kenya’s most popular safari parks. Every year tens of thousands of visitors come for a close encounter with the famous elephants as they graze the marshlands against the spectacular backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak.
But this beautiful landscape is being turned into a bloodbath. At least four elephants have been wounded already this year, one of them a large adult male who was killed and butchered, his tusks chopped out by poachers. Amboseli’s expert trackers say other elephants are missing. “The rate of killing and wounding is accelerating,” the report stated.
As many as 44 elephants were wounded or killed by poisoned arrows, stabbed with spears or shot with rifles during 2008 and early 2009. Ten of these were discovered with their tusks hacked out. In one particularly brutal case, a 4-month-old calf was found with dozens of spear wounds.
Many of the elephant deaths are attributed to conflict with people as farmlands encroach on the animals’ traditional habitat or animals roam into human areas and destroy desperately needed crops.
This problem has existed for many years, but the trust says that what is happening now “is dramatically and alarmingly different,” as elephants are slaughtered for their tusks and smuggled over the nearby border into Tanzania or sold to local Chinese workers.
Last year four Chinese nationals were arrested as they attempted to smuggle elephant tusks out of the country from Jomo Kenyatta International airport in the capital Nairobi. In one case smugglers were caught with a haul of 242 pounds of fresh elephant tusks. The most recent arrest of a Chinese national caught with illegal ivory was on Feb. 7.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/featu ... nts-201108
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 140219.htm
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/keny ... blem-kenya
New wave of elephant poaching in Kenya
An influx of Chinese workers and Asian demand for ivory leads to increased poaching.
NAIROBI, Kenya — Chinese workers are buying ivory tusks hacked from the carcasses of illegally hunted elephants in a banned trade that could decimate herds in one of Kenya’s most famous wildlife reserves, a recent report has concluded.
Thousands of African elephants are killed every year to supply a market largely driven by Asian demand. Last year the first legal ivory auction in nine years was held and more than 100 tons of elephant tusks were sold exclusively to Chinese and Japanese buyers who fought to outbid each other in multi-million dollar sales.
The resurrection of such auctions and the increase in Chinese workers in Africa have sparked fears about the potential impact on a species that has only recently recovered from illegal poaching.
“The situation for elephants in the [Amboseli] area has become critical over the past year and more particularly over the past four months,” warned the report by the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, run by veteran conservationist Dr. Cynthia Moss, who has been working in the 150-square-mile reserve in southern Kenya for 37 years.
Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation at Kenya Wildlife Service, said Kenya lost 98 elephants to poaching in 2008, double the number killed in 2007, but he said the news from Amboseli was particularly worrying. “This is the first time in a decade that we've seen poaching in Amboseli," he said.
The recent arrest of a Kenyan and a Tanzanian highlights the seriousness of the problem. The pair pled guilty in March to illegal possession of ivory after they were caught carrying 1,129 pounds of tusks, extracted from about 35 to 40 elephants. The seizure is one of the largest in East Africa in years.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) also warned that poaching is on the rise following the slaughter of five elephants in six weeks in the nearby Tsavo National Park.
“Since the one-off ivory sales from Southern Africa countries late last year, we have noted an unprecedented rise of elephant poaching incidents in Tsavo,” said Jonathan Kirui, assistant director at Tsavo.
Omondi said the wildlife service links the upsurge in poaching with the growing Chinese presence in the country. Chinese workers have flooded the continent, constructing roads, railways and dams in infrastructure-for-minerals deals.
.“There are two Chinese road camps in the general area,” said the Amboseli Trust report. “We are told by our informants that they are buying ivory [and] bush meat.”
The international ivory trade was banned in 1989, but in the decade before that Africa’s elephant population plummeted to 600,000 from 1.3 million. In Kenya the effect of the trade was even worse, with 85 percent of the elephant population killed off in the 15 years before the ban came into force.
Herds have recovered dramatically since then but ivory remains a commodity highly prized in the Far East, where it is used in medicines, ornaments and family seals.
Elephant ivory sold on Kenya’s black market fetches about 3,000 shillings per kilogram (about $18 per pound). The tusks of a large male bull elephant can weigh more than 110 pounds each, making poaching an attractive earner for poor rural Kenyans, many of whom live in grinding poverty and rely on subsistence farming for survival.
Late last year Interpol coordinated a sting operation on illegal wildlife traffickers that led to the seizure in Kenya of 113 pieces of ivory weighing 787 pounds. Of the 36 poachers and brokers arrested, three were Chinese.
Amboseli is one of Kenya’s most popular safari parks. Every year tens of thousands of visitors come for a close encounter with the famous elephants as they graze the marshlands against the spectacular backdrop of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak.
But this beautiful landscape is being turned into a bloodbath. At least four elephants have been wounded already this year, one of them a large adult male who was killed and butchered, his tusks chopped out by poachers. Amboseli’s expert trackers say other elephants are missing. “The rate of killing and wounding is accelerating,” the report stated.
As many as 44 elephants were wounded or killed by poisoned arrows, stabbed with spears or shot with rifles during 2008 and early 2009. Ten of these were discovered with their tusks hacked out. In one particularly brutal case, a 4-month-old calf was found with dozens of spear wounds.
Many of the elephant deaths are attributed to conflict with people as farmlands encroach on the animals’ traditional habitat or animals roam into human areas and destroy desperately needed crops.
This problem has existed for many years, but the trust says that what is happening now “is dramatically and alarmingly different,” as elephants are slaughtered for their tusks and smuggled over the nearby border into Tanzania or sold to local Chinese workers.
Last year four Chinese nationals were arrested as they attempted to smuggle elephant tusks out of the country from Jomo Kenyatta International airport in the capital Nairobi. In one case smugglers were caught with a haul of 242 pounds of fresh elephant tusks. The most recent arrest of a Chinese national caught with illegal ivory was on Feb. 7.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
On a brighter note, check these folks out. Great work being done here:
http://www.elephants.com/
What the hell is wrong with people?!?!?
This! it's unimmaginable to me in this day and age, but so are whaling ships. :evil:
i was most appalled with the chinese's desire for ivory as a status symbol. this constant want of things to reflect our growing wealth is just anathema to me. im now wealthy enough to buy ivory.. woop de doo..
and then theres this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP_AaKuIkqY
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
P.S. Yes, the Arabs get some of the blame for Rhino poaching....they want the horns to make their daggers.
during my reading it came out that the chinese think tusks are like teeth.. that they fall out and regrow. perhaps if they were educated on where exactly ivory comes from and that the elephants are killed to obtain it their desire would wane.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
There is LEGAL ivory available on the world market....if it was harvested prior to the ban, it's legal to trade...if it is fossilized mammoth/mastodon ivory, that's legal and readily available....so available that I know a small mammoth tusk.
The elephant is not the only animal that the Chinese and some other Asian cultures are driving to extinction through their traditional medicine market.....Musk Deer....tigers (all species)...rhinos....Asiatic bears.
powers. Sharks are immune to diseases such as cancer, so I think these people
believe drinking this soup will make them immune as well.
This documentary actually showed the footage of these sharks being butchered and dumped back in the ocean. It was one of the most despicable and disturbing pieces of footage I have ever seen. Those people are pieces of shit.
Another habit says its long overdue
Another habit like an unwanted friend
I'm so happy with my righteous self
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I agree with this. I think a lot of people feel like there's a big difference between killing an animal and harvesting something that fell out naturally and will regrow - and many of them wouldn't buy ivory if they knew what they were doing. Hell, I didn't even realize how ivory was harvested until I was well into adulthood. I would have been happy to buy it before I was educated, but I would never ever buy it now.
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/ ... 35.html#fb
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zimbabwe-22-more-elephants-killed-in-hwange-park-by-cyanide/ar-BBmrZD9?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=mailsignout
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
another question, what are the penalty's for white collar crimes in China ? I remember seeing a(on T.V) woman who was convicted of embezzling from a Bank she and her husband worked for (in China) she was publicly executed and her husband was forced to attend and see her shot through the head.
everybody wants justice for a crime but the laws sometimes make the crime affordable in a sense that the profit from the crime is much greater than the possible punishment if caught...so what do you think would detour these poachers and the buyers who knowingly buy poached ivory ? maybe the same punishment handed down to the couple in China ? after all if these rules are made to law these poachers and buyers would know the penalty and maybe move on to a less expensive crime....maybe.
Godfather.
Godfather.