Tuesday, February 21, 2017

China Owns the Extinction of African Elephants - Science

Twenty-five thousand elephants have been poached in ten years in the Minkébé National Park in Africa and there's no possible way this is sustainable.  The ivory in the tusks of the elephants is the reason for the poaching and it's been banned in the West for many years for any kind of commercial or medical use.  There was a time when the ivory was used for piano keys and jewelry, etc but that time is long gone.  Maybe some of y'all have some better knowledge but it appears the only place there is demand for ivory is China.

Forest elephant populations in one of Central Africa's largest and most important preserves have declined between 78 percent and 81 percent because of poaching, a new Duke University-led study finds.

"Our research suggests that more than 25,000 elephants in Gabon's Minkébé National Park may have been killed for their ivory between 2004 and 2014," said John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

"With nearly half of Central Africa's estimated 100,000 forest elephants thought to live in Gabon, the loss of 25,000 elephants from this key sanctuary is a considerable setback for the preservation of the species," he said.

- Science Daily:  Poaching drives 80 percent decline in elephants in key preserve

In the last ten years, ivory hasn't been legal anywhere in the West and blaming hardly ever accomplishes anything positive but there's a total lack of accountability for driving one of the most beloved creatures on the planet to extinction and doing it for nothing more than willful bloody mindedness.



This is a small group of forest elephants in Gabon's Minkébé National Park. Poaching for the illegal ivory trade has reduced their numbers by 80 percent, according to a new study.

Credit: John Poulsen, Duke University

- SD

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You may enjoy this current PBS series. It features your beloved penguins -, the painted dogs, merkats and others but the "turtle love" must not be missed..too funny when a turtle tries to mate with the "spy-cam"

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/spy-in-the-wild-about/14810/

Enjoyed talking to you and Yvette yesterday! Again soon, hopefully!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the link since that page has lots of cool videos although the sexed-up turtle would be a first.

It was lovely talking and you hear how Yevette gets a bang out of it. Hopefully soon again for sure!