Elephants, the largest land Mammals that have lived for millions of years are now staring at the face of extinction because of ignorance and greed. Elephants are being poached at an unprecedented rate for their Ivory, threatening their survival in the wild, on average around 20,000 elephants are poached in the wild for their Ivory which goes on from Africa and Asia to far east countries such as China and Japan which is the main market for Ivory as Ivory carvings is seen as a status symbol and has cultural roots in China. In China, the growing middle-class section of society has money that they previously did not have, eager to buy Ivory carvings which is a status symbol in Chinese Society, a good investment, and a show of wealth, but this Indulgence of Ivory carvings has some elements of ignorance in it as well, many Chinese people think that the Ivory used for carving fall off naturally and does not harm them, but are oblivious the fact that the Ivory once extracted in the Brutal way that it is being done, does not grow back as a Rhino Horn does and in the process of obtaining Ivory the Elephant loses its life, the survival rate is near zero with an exception or two.
Kenyan game rangers with the carcass of an elephant killed by poachers (AFP/Getty Images)
The Illegal Ivory trade is worth Billions of Dollars in the Illegal black market through which it makes it to the streets of China, this trade has attracted big criminal syndicates and terrorist organizations in the region who resort to elephant poaching to sell ivory to fund their nefarious activities, a not so old example of terrorist Organization is the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) formed in Uganda moved into the Garamba National Park in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to hunt the big herds of Elephants present their and the relative ease with which they could cross the border into the Central African Republic to escape the rangers on patrols after collecting the Ivory. The poachers typically use snares or an elephant gun of which 2-3 bullets are enough to down a large elephant if shot at the right spot and to be quiet and secretive to avoid the ranger’s attention they sometimes use arrows with poisoned tips which are slow and takes days to weeks to down an Elephant depending on the size. However with terrorists showing interest in the trade they infiltrate the park by crossing the border then spot a herd and mow them down with automatic rifles killing even the babies who haven’t started showing Tusks, in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park the oldest park in Kenya the Tuskers (Elephants with Tusks weighing over 45 kg’s) were targetted which wiped out almost all the big elephants in the park leaving only the young ones, the death of all the Tuskers in the park impacted the herds drastically as the Tuskers had experience in tackling averse situation such as draughts, avoiding human settlements, etc.
today nearly 2 elephants die every day in Africa and the number is unknown in Asia according to conservative estimates, but the number is much higher as the demand has grown over the years, the poaching of Elephants poses a significant threat to the health of the ecosystem which we Humans, depend on as Elephants are instrumental in dispersing seeds across the parks where they are found and also clear overgrown areas and help in controlling the number of Invasive plants, hence rightfully they are called the gardeners of the forest/engineers of the forest. Since Elephants are highly social and intelligent animals due to the excessive pressure of poaching some studies conducted in Mozambique have shown that Elephants have stopped growing tusks to protect themselves and the herd. Additionally, the threat of poaching has pushed the Elephants out of the park in direct conflict with Humans who are hostile towards them for destroying their crops, their anger is understandable but not justified as we Humans should understand the fact that the Earth is not ours and our homes are built on the Forest which existed way before us which is the home of the Elephant hence killing is not an option but Coexisting with them is the only way
