Good summary of the current elephant poaching crisis

DavidBrown

DavidBrown

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Iain Douglas-Hamilton has written a very readable, accesible, and comprehensive account of the current elephant poaching crisis. He lays out the forces driving the poaching (mainly ivory demand in China), the extent of the crisis (dire), and what needs to be done about it.

If you are a zoo educator, elephant keeper or manager then hopefully you can find ways to inform zoo visitors about this and help find meaningful ways for them to contribute to elephant conservation. This is a time to really figure out how zoo elephants can be meaningful conservation ambassadors for their wild cousins.

Time Running out to Save Elephants from Ivory Trade – News Watch
 
Fantastic, balanced article. I was about to zone out and post my usual quip about conservationists not recognising the problem of changing attitudes in China, but he addressed this quite well in the last third of the article. Here's hoping that other celebrities help spread the word, and that the nouveau rich will see buying ivory as being as archaic as eating dog meat is becoming. As richer Chinese prefer to keep dogs as pets, hopefully they will prefer to go on safari to see a live elephant rather than buy ivory.
 
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