African Elephants May Be Extinct As Early As 2020

Edrof

Edrof

Edrof

Soldato
Joined
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It's a sad and surprising prediction. The growing levels of ivory poaching (and other things like conflicts with human settlements and so on) in Africa are killing 10% of the entire continent's wild elephants each year. The poaching is worse now than in the late eighties when global outrage led to a ban on international ivory trade -yet nobody seems to know about it.

So this is me doing my bit ;)

I wrote an article here if you want to check it out but there's quite a bit of info out there if you want to read up on it.

Obviously there are a lot of stats out there and it's hard to nail down the 100% accurate ones, but the message is the important thing. Weird to think that our grandkids might think of African Elephants (in the wild at the least) like we think about dodos.





Photographer Nick Brandt set up a new foundation to start getting things back on the right track.

Some of his work (many of the elephants he has captured on film are now dead):
nickbrandt18.jpg

nickbrandtphotography1.jpg

nickbrandt2.jpg




Anyway GD, thanks for reading.
 
Its their own fault, if they didnt have bling bling tusks they wouldnt get killed.
 
if only elephants were made of oil, america would invade africa and kill all the poachers (as well as a lot of other random people)
 
Yeah some of the poachers these days have automatic weapons, night vision, air reconnaissance and GPS gear.

Others are just damned poor local farmers who scratch a living out of crap earth and see a chance to feed their family for a year.


Sadly, I think you guys are right - it's just a matter of time.

China and other countries don't help, though!
 
Forde said:
Weird to think that our grandkids might think of African Elephants (in the wild at the least) like we think about dodos.
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I hadn't heard of numbers being culled, but I haven't researched that either. I know poachers are killing the herds in Amboseli Park and Tsavo Reserve.
 
Forde said:
Weird to think that our grandkids might think of African Elephants (in the wild at the least) like we think about dodos
Click to expand...

So..not extinct then.

What I want to know about endangered species campaigns, is why people always seem to create campaigns around the "nice" (for want of a better word) looking animals. I honestly dont recall the last time I saw a prominent public campaign to save an endangered spider, or mollusc, or lizard. Never seem to see a campaign to save the Kuaui Cave Wolf Spider for instance, yet it is rated as more endangered than many of the ones I do see. Or the Katipo Spider (related to the black widow). But thats a different topic entirely and merely me writing whats going through my head :)
 
vonhelmet said:
I await the news of the first poacher to break into a zoo and kill the elephant right there.

Hell, I'll bet if I Googled I'd find it's already been done.
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Hehe, could camo himself as a balloon seller and sneak up on the elephant enclosure. Then swear it was just a balloon bursting and he didnt know what happened to the elephant.
 
snowdog said:
Yep.


Poor fella's though, I think the African ones look far better than the Indian elephants. Smart creatures too.
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The thing is, an elephant isn't being outcompeted by us in evolutionary terms. We're killing it with superior firepower for no reason than because it has piano keys stuck in its face.

That's not evolution.
 
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