Poachers Killed More than 100,000 Elephants in 3 Years

[Buster's Uncle]

Poachers Killed More than 100,000 Elephants in 3 Years
LiveScience.com
By Laura Geggel, Staff Writer  2 hours ago



The elephant holds a special place in our hearts as they are not only intelligent but share many of the same emotional attributes as humans



The insatiable demand for ivory is causing a dramatic decline in the number of African elephants. Poachers are hunting the animal faster than it can reproduce, with deaths affecting more than half of elephant families in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, a new study finds.

In 2011, the worst African elephant poaching year on record since 1998, poachers killed an estimated 40,000 elephants, or about 8 percent of the elephant population in Africa. In the absence of poaching, African elephant populations grow about 4.2 percent each year, the researchers found based on detailed records from Samburu.

African Elephants are an intelligent species; individuals cooperate with one another and console one another in times of distress, but people unfortunately like their ivory tusks, said the study's lead researcher, George Wittemyer, an assistant professor of fish, wildlife and conservation biology at Colorado State University.

Wittemyer has studied African elephants in Kenya for the past 17 years, monitoring their complex social lives. In 2009, a drought led to the deaths of about 12 percent of elephants in Kenya. The animals' numbers dropped further when a wave of poaching, which has been ongoing since that year, upset the population. [Elephant Images: The Biggest Beasts on Land]

"Sadly, in 2009, we had a terrible drought, and we started seeing a lot of illegal killing of elephants as well as natural deaths," Wittemyer told Live Science. "We've been struggling to respond. We've been trying to find solutions to dampen the illegal killing."



An elephant sprays earth in the Tsavo East National Park, 280 km (173 miles) east of Kenya's capital Nairobi February 10, 2011. A census of elephants in the Tsavo-Mkomazi conservation area is ongoing as drought and poaching are putting pressure on the large animals, it remains to be seen whether the population is expanding or contracting. (REUTERS/Noor Khamis)


His team used data on natural deaths versus poaching deaths in the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, and then applied these numbers to a continent-wide database called MIKE, or Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants. Started in 2002, MIKE is maintained by communities across Africa that report when, where and how elephants die.

The researchers created two computer models: one that looked at 12 MIKE sites with the best carcass data, and a second that examined all 306 sites, even those with less information about elephant deaths. The researchers did not include areas in West Africa, which is home to about 2 percent of the African elephant population, because data there are sparse, Wittemyer said.

In the past 10 years, elephant numbers at the 12 sites have decreased by 7 percent, which takes into account that elephant numbers were mostly increasing until 2009. Elephants in central Africa decreased by more than 60 percent in the past 10 years, according to an analysis of three locations in the 12-site model. Poaching is so widespread that 75 percent of elephant populations across the continent have been declining since 2009, with only 25 percent showing stable or increasing numbers, Wittemyer said.

"Alarming increases in illegal killing for ivory are driving African elephants rapidly into extinction," said Peter Leimgruber, a conservation biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, who was not involved in the study.

Poaching rates for ivory are unsustainable and exceed the natural growth rate of wild elephants, Leimgruber said. "This means that elephant populations currently decline by nearly 60 to 70 percent every 10 years, making it likely for the species to go extinct in the near future if poaching and the illegal ivory trade are not stopped," he said.



The male elephant Changila, shortly before poachers killed him near the Samburu National Reserve in Kenya.


Much of the ivory demand comes from China and Southeast Asia. Many people see ivory as a status symbol and an artistic investment, especially for religious renditions, whereas others turn to ivory for mass-consumption products, such as bracelets and chopsticks, Wittemyer said.

A similar ivory boom in the late 1970s and 1980s tapered out when 115 countries opted to ban the international trade of ivory in 1989. Today, researchers hope that conservation organizations, as well as high-profile advocates such as Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, will help to stem the ivory demand.

Poachers killed an average of 33,630 elephants every year from 2010 to 2012, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths across the continent, the study found. Illegal killings across Africa decreased somewhat in 2010, but they were still higher than pre-2009 levels, the researchers reported. As more elephants are poached, the number of governmental seizures of illegal ivory increase, and the black market price of ivory goes up.

"The spike in the upward trends does appear to have leveled off, but at unsustainably high levels," John E. Scanlon, secretary general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science. "We know what needs to be done, and we must enhance our efforts in the front lines to address supply and demand across source, transit and destination countries."

The study was published today (Aug. 18) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


http://news.yahoo.com/poachers-killed-more-100-000-elephants-3-years-143743965.html

[Buster's Uncle]

100,000 elephants killed in Africa, study finds
Associated Press
By JASON STRAZIUSO  August 18, 2014 3:41 PM



The elephant holds a special place in our hearts as they are not only intelligent but share many of the same emotional attributes as humans



Poachers killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa between 2010 and 2012, a huge spike in the continent's death rate of the world's largest mammals because of an increased demand for ivory in China and other Asian nations, a new study published Monday found.

Warnings about massive elephant slaughters have been ringing for years, but Monday's study is the first to scientifically quantify the number of deaths across the continent by measuring deaths in one closely monitored park in Kenya and using other published data to extrapolate fatality tolls across the continent.

The study — which was carried out by the world's leading elephant experts — found that the proportion of illegally killed elephants has climbed from 25 percent of all elephant deaths a decade ago to roughly 65 percent of all elephant deaths today, a percentage that, if continued, will lead to the extinction of the species.

China's rising middle class and the demand for ivory in that country of 1.3 billion people is driving the black market price of ivory up, leading to more impoverished people in Africa "willing to take the criminal risk on and kill elephants. The causation in my mind is clear," said the study's lead author, George Wittemyer of Colorado State University.

The peer-review study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was co-authored by experts from Save the Elephants, the Kenya Wildlife Service, an international group called MIKE responsible for monitoring the illegal killings of elephants, and two international universities.

"The current demand for ivory is unsustainable. That is our overarching conclusion. It must come down. Otherwise the elephants will continue to decrease," said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants.



In this Monday, Dec. 17, 2012 file photo, a herd of adult and baby elephants walks in the dawn light across Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya, with the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, seen behind. A new study released Monday Aug. 18, 2014, by lead author George Wittemye of Colorado State University, found that the proportion of illegally killed elephants has climbed to about 65 percent of all African elephant deaths, accounting for around 100,000 elephants killed by poachers between 2010 and 2012. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)


Elephant deaths are not happening at the same rate across Africa. The highest death rate is in central Africa, with East Africa — Tanzania and Kenya — not far behind. Botswana is a bright spot, with a population that is holding steady or growing. South Africa's rhinos are being killed, but poachers have not yet begun attacking elephants.

Some individual elephant death numbers are shocking. The elephant population in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve dropped from 40,000 to 13,000 over the last three years.

China is aware of its image problem concerning the ivory trade. The embassy in Kenya this month donated anti-poaching equipment to four wildlife conservancies. Chinese Ambassador Liu Xianfa said at the handover ceremony that China is increasing publicity and education of its people to increase understanding of the illegal ivory trade.

"Wildlife crimes are a cross-border menace," Liu said, according to a transcript of the ceremony published by Kenya's Capital FM. "I assure you that more action will follow as will support to fulfil our promise. We firmly believe that, through joint efforts, the drive of combating wildlife crimes will achieve success."

Counting elephants is extremely difficult. Even Douglas-Hamilton refuses to offer an estimate as to how many live in Africa. An often-cited number is roughly 400,000, but the Save the Elephants founder would argue that no one truly knows.



In this Wednesday, June 5, 2013 file photo, two-month-old orphaned baby elephant Ajabu is given a dust-bath in the red earth after being fed milk from a bottle by a keeper, at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. A new study released Monday Aug. 18, 2014, by lead author George Wittemye of Colorado State University, found that the proportion of illegally killed elephants has climbed to about 65 percent of all elephant deaths, accounting for around 100,000 elephants killed by poachers between 2010 and 2012. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)


Counting elephant deaths is just as hard. But a Save the Elephants project in northern Kenya's Samburu National Reserve has counted elephant births and deaths — including if the death was natural or from poachers — for the last 16 years. Using that data, the authors examined known death numbers in other African regions compared with the rate of natural deaths and were able to determine that the continent's deaths between 2010-2012 were about 100,000.

"This is the best work available from the best data we have using officials from the top organization, so in my mind this is the best you are going to get at the moment," said Wittemyer. "Because of the magnitude of the issue and the politics we've been very careful. The scrutiny we did internally was at a much greater level than the questions we got in the peer review process."

Despite the huge death numbers, both Wittemyer and Douglas-Hamilton believe elephants can survive. Wittemyer said more elephants will be killed, but in areas where countries are willing to invest in wildlife security numbers will hold steady, he said.

Elephants survived a huge poaching crisis in the 1970s and 1980s fueled by Japan, Douglas-Hamilton noted.

"I have to be an optimist," he said. "I've been through all of this before in the 70s and 80s. As a collective group we stopped that killing, and in the savannahs there was a reprieve of 20 years. I believe we can do it again."


http://news.yahoo.com/100-000-elephants-killed-africa-study-finds-190144597.html