Elephant conservation news 6 - 14 August 1009
Experts are warning of a second 'ivory holocaust' as the number of elephants being killed by poachers in Africa has rocketed to an estimated 38,000 each year.
Research based on data collected by the Born Free Foundation paints a grim picture of the situation in sub-Saharan Africa, where elephants could be virtually wiped out within 15 years if the current estimated trend continues.
Poaching had been on the wane since the 1989 CITES ban on the international trading of ivory, though regulations were relaxed in 1997 to allow some legal trading.
However, the explosion in poaching over the last five years - driven by consumers willing to pay more than $1000US per kilo in the Asian markets - is prompting fears of a return to the decline witnessed in the late 1970s and 1980s, when numbers of African elephants dwindled from 1.3 million to 500,000.
Sam Wasser, from the Centre for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the current problem has its roots in organised crime being drawn to the vast amounts of money there for the taking.
"This has created a situation where organised crime has gotten very heavily involved in the illegal trade," he told the BBC.
"In fact, if you look at all wildlife crime - not just ivory - there are tens of billions of dollars being made annually."
A spokesman for the Born Free Foundation told elephant.co.uk that a 'one-off' sale of ivory to China and Japan late last year - endorsed by the UK Government - had caused "severe repercussions" for African elephants.
"Organised wildlife criminals are operating across Africa and Asia - elephants are dying, massive shipments of ivory are being seized and rangers are losing their lives in battles with well-armed poachers," they added.
"Some enforcement authorities believe the illegal trade in wildlife from Africa may have overtaken drugs in terms of monetary value.
"The international community has to sit up and take notice of what's happening."
Bangkok's smiling elephants
An elephant who was found begging in the streets of Bangkok has been sent to a conservation centre thanks to public donations.
The 30-year-old partially blind animal, called Pang Bua Kham, was bought for the equivalent of around £5,300 from his owner, under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's Smiling Elephants project.
As one of the first to benefit from the initiative, the elephant will be cared for at the state-run Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang.
Designed to reduce the number of elephants roaming the Thai capital, Smiling Elephants aims to rescue all elephants on the streets within a year.
Many more owners have since come forward to offer up their elephants for sale, according to the Bangkok Post.
