Easter Greetings!

May the message of Spring be with you and the people you love!

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Picture of the Day

Great picture, Mr. Tony Karumba! This family of elephants lives in Serengeti National Park, in northern Tanzania.  

Easter is the perfect time to be with your family, as the elephants are here!  Remember, family matters to animals too.

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A Battle for the Elephants

This video was taken in Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world.  This is an ivory stockpile of confiscated ivory.  

The question is, what do we do with it?

P.S. If you can't access this video, you can click here!

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New Promises Follow Elephant Slaughter in Chad and Cameroon

The following article was written by Laurel Neme yesterday for National Geographic.  While what happened in Chad and Cameroon was awful, I learned so much from reading this.  Did you know that 30 of the 86 elephants killed were pregnant females?  And remember, the gestation period for an elephant is 22 months!  The species can't sustain this!                   

"In the aftermath of the largest elephant poaching episode thus far in 2013, Central African governments met to coordinate and adopt an emergency plan to combat the killings. But is it too little, too late?

On March 14-15, at least 86 elephants were killed in Tikem, near Fianga in the Mayo Kebbi East region of southwestern Chad, close to the Cameroon border. Among the victims were more than 30 pregnant females, many of which aborted their calves when they were shot. The calves were left to die, and reportedly some were shot. It’s too sickening to even comprehend.

The massacre occurred in the closing hours of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) 16^th Conference of Parties (COP16) meeting (held in Bangkok from March 3-14), where the topic of elephants was high on the agenda.

The timing was also just weeks after the discovery of 28 elephant carcasses, all stripped of their ivory tusks, in Cameroon’s Nki and Lobeke National Parks and at least 15 carcasses across four separate locations in Central African Republic.

All these incidents followed numerous reports of columns of Sudanese poachers crossing Central African Republic and heading toward Cameroon and Chad.

Both the Chad and Cameroon governments had responded to this advance notice. In December, the Chad government sent soldiers and military aircraft to patrol the region and Cameroon deployed its Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), a special forces military unit. But neither was able to find the poaching gangs and stop them.

“We’ve been aware of the poachers’ presence and movements since last November in the Central African Republic, but given the means at hand, and difficulty of working in this vast, remote landscape, it has been very challenging to fully address the situation,” says Richard Ruggiero, Chief, Branch of Asia and Africa at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Emergency Acknowledged

 A three-day emergency meeting on the poaching of elephants, organized by the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC), was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon from March 21-23. The 70-plus participants included ministers of defense, foreign affairs, and wildlife protection, as well as representatives from the United Nations Development Program and other organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund and SOS Elephants.

Some attendees suggested that because key people such as the forces on the ground were not immediately involved, the assessment and resulting plans were not suitable for the real needs.

The final declaration acknowledged that national initiatives to combat poaching and illegal wildlife trafficking had failed. It also reiterated the need for countries involved throughout the ivory supply chain (origin, transit, and destination) to coordinate efforts to combat the transnational, organized crime networks that are operating in the region.

Delegates adopted a plan of extreme urgency to fight poaching (PEXULAB), which includes immediate anti-poaching measures in the northern zone of Cameroon, the north and southwest of the Central African Republic, and southern Chad.

The plan calls for: mobilization of military forces in Chad and Cameroon to support anti-poaching brigades; creation of national coordination units and a mechanism for inter-state coordination; exchange of information on poachers’ movements; implementation of a tripartite agreement that would allow intervention by mixed (multi-country) brigades; and criminalization of poaching and illegal ivory trade so that penalties mirror those for organized transnational crimes.

Around the world, penalties are notoriously low for wildlife crimes. On March 19 in Ireland, for instance, two rhino horn dealers were fined 500 Euros ($650) each for illegally smuggling eight rhino horns, valued at an estimated 500,000 Euros ($650,000) on the black market.

Delegates at the emergency meeting also called on ivory consuming nations to adopt measures to reduce demand and restrict illegal entry of ivory. While they welcomed Thailand’s recent announcement to ban its illegal ivory trade, they pressed that country to actually implement the ban. They also urged other destination countries to redouble their efforts to combat the illicit trade.

The CEEAC meeting plan echoes the themes of CITES COP16, namely: the need to work across source, transit, and range states; the need for coordinated, transnational efforts; the need to treat illegal killing of elephants and other wildlife and illicit trade in ivory and other wildlife parts as serious crimes; and the need for more effective enforcement by way of prosecutions, higher penalties, and advanced operational techniques already used to combat illicit trade in narcotics.

“We’re up against formidable opponents here, so it’s not going to be easy.”

“We’re dealing with an extremely difficult situation,” CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon says. “We’ve got rebel militia groups, on very rare occasions rogue elements of the military, and organized criminals all involved in the illegal killing of elephants and illegal ivory trade,” “We’re up against formidable opponents here, so it’s not going to be easy. That’s why COP16′s focus on political engagement and on enhancing operational effectiveness is so important.”

 Just Another Toothless Meeting?

Financing for implementation of the CEEAC emergency plan, as well as for medium- and longer-term actions, is still needed. While a 1.8 million Euro ($2.3 million) budget and timetable for actions were laid out for PEXULAB, the status of financial commitments is unclear. PEXULAB documents specified the need to set up a supra-national task force to maintain “the momentum between Governments and partners for the financing of operations.” The meeting’s final declaration invited the international community and other partners to come forward with money.

To further complicate matters, lingering political instability in the Central African Republic came to a head on Sunday when rebels seized the capital and President Francois Bozizé fled the country (seeking temporary refuge in Cameroon). This chaotic situation implies that poachers can continue to roam that country with impunity.

To Ofir Drori, coordinator of the Central and West Africa Wildlife Law Enforcement Network (which has assisted in the jailing of more than 800 traffickers), the meeting missed the point. “All the talks and discussions just distract us from what it’s all about,” he said. “Corruption is the number one obstacle of wildlife law enforcement. Until we are ready to fight it, we lose the war against the poachers.”

Poachers Poised for More Attacks

Based on sightings from the air and ground, it appears that the Sudanese poachers have broken into small bands of 10 to 15 men and are widely dispersed. However, the specific movements and exact locations of the poachers in and around Chad and Cameroon are unconfirmed, and the accuracy of reports is unclear. Some reports place a gang or gangs of poachers in or near Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park, which was the site of the slaughter of hundreds of elephants in early 2012.

“We’re watching developments closely and are working with our partners in southern Chad, including African Parks Network and others,” Ruggiero says. “The Chadian authorities on the ground are engaged, and we have assurances that our Cameroonian partners are fully informed and will react appropriately.”

Already, Chadian troops are pursuing the poachers and have engaged them. On Monday, President of SOS Elephants Stephanie Vergniault said that “the Chadian Président has deployed a lot of troops to catch the poachers and is very determined to get them before they leave the Chadian territory.” She noted that earlier in the day there had been a violent exchange of gunfire between some poachers and the regular army in Loumobogo (close to the Central African Republic). She also reported that authorities seized 30 tusks and that “Chad has declared a total war to the poachers.”

Lack of financing and need for high-level commitment and coordination for wildlife crime law enforcement were top issues at the CITES COP 16 meeting. But those concerns voiced by the delegates did nothing to help the pregnant elephants massacred days ago in southwestern Chad.

They, and tens of thousands of other elephants, are the victims of a perfect storm of high ivory prices driven by soaring Chinese demand, low risk of ivory traffickers getting caught, low penalties for those who do, and a lack of priority at either local levels or higher political ones to get serious about elephant poaching.

Encouragingly, Chad appears to be actively pursuing the poachers. But the situation in Cameroon and the Central African Republic is less clear, and the bottom line is that the Sudanese poachers are still hunting."

~ Laurel Neme

March 27, 2013

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Guitar Makers Hit The Perfect Note!

What do elephants and guitars have in common?

They usually both feature beautiful ivory!

Think about this: what would happen if every guitar player in the world stopped buying guitars with ivory inlay? 

  Any decrease in ivory demand is an increase for the safety of elephants in the wild. 

"Graph Tech Guitar Labs, the world’s largest manufacturer of premium guitar nuts and saddles, is pleased to announce our support for IFAW in protecting elephants from habitat loss, conflict with humans and poaching. Through producing our harmonically rich Graph Tech offers a superior nut and saddle material alternative to ivory or bone.

“If you calculate the annual weight of the TUSQ material we have sold, Graph Tech has potentially saved the equivalent weight of over 1100 African elephant tusks every year”! says Dave Dunwoodie, Graph Tech founder and head honcho.

Graph Tech also supports WWF by making an annual donation to WWF, on our customer’s behalf and supporting WWF- “wifelife adoption program”.

Graph Tech is committed to animal protection as well as reducing our environmental impact. Recently, Graph Tech changed our nut and saddle packaging and have reduced our packaging cubic space and weight by over 250%. The skin packing material used is also plant based and compostable."

~San Francisco Chronicle
March 27, 2013

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A Sigh Of Relief!

As over 100 elephants were killed last week in Chad and Cameroon, I was ready for some good news this week!  Thank goodness for Gabon!

"Conservation Justice worked with the gabon Judicial Police to arrest elephant poachers based on their investigations in Gabon. 15 traffickers and elephant poachers in the Woleu-Ntem province and 3 in Nyanga province were arrested in February and are currently behind bars in the Woleu-Ntem locality and in Nyanga respectively. As a result of these arrests, remaining elephants may actually have a chance to survive. A bit of hope in an otherwise very grim picture.

From the beginning of this year, more than 350 kg of ivory was seized representing more than 50 tusks, a massacre of 25 elephants. Investigations by the AALF ((Appui à l'Application de la Loi sur la Faune) project, a partnership between Conservation Justice and the Forestry Ministry, resulted in the confiscation of 33 tusks, totaling 280 kg since January.

The tusks seized represent only a small part of the traffic as tusks are usually not seized but exported out of the country and find their way to Thailand, China, Japan. We believe the seizure of very small tusks represent left-over that did not pass the selection of the bigger ivory syndicates.

Luc Mathot of Conservation Justice: "The criminals arrested last night gave ample information that we hope will lead to more arrests soon."

On the illegal logging front, our new project ALEFI is fruitful with the arrests of four local criminals and hopefully a few Chinese criminals arrested. "The project, which tackles corruption and illegality in the forest sector, is our alternative to the Independent Observer approach as we try to demonstrate that the approach of our network to wildlife law enforcement can be applied to Illegal logging, bringing arrests, prosecutions and anti-corruption work to the sleepy fight against illegal logging, where NGOs play a limited role."

~African Conservation Foundation 

Gabon is on the west coast of central Africa, located on the equator.  

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Change The Way You Think About Everything

      

An adult elephant drinks 18 to 52 gallons of water a day.  

An adult human drinks about half a gallon a day. 

One latte takes 50 gallons of water to make.  

How much water can you save?

How much water can we save?

How much water can the world save?

How many elephants can the world save?

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Picture of the Day

This picture is of a baby with it's mother in Amboselli National Park in Kenya.

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Change the Way You Think About Food

"We are literally eating the planet."

"Today we use 1/3 of the planet's surface to produce food.  By 2050, we will need twice as much food.  Now take away deserts, mountains, lakes, rivers, streams, cities and highways and national parks.  That doesn't leave a lot of room for biodiversity."

"Can we do more with less?"

   

We see this playing out in Africa and Asia, where farmers are in conflict with elephants for space.  

What should we do?

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World Water Day!

Happy world water day!  I would like to encourage you to think about water.  In places like Africa, water is a constant necessity, and issue.   Clean water sources are scarce, for people and elephants.  

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And Now For Something Completely Different 5.0

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I've Got Great News!

The April edition of National Geographic arrived today in my mailbox!  As always, I am super-excited to pick it up, and see what new things I can learn.  However, when I saw a mammoth on the front cover today, I had a feeling I would be able to connect mammoths to elephants, and would be able to write about it on my blog!  And sure enough, I am going to write about it! 

National Geographic's April Issue, "Reviving Extinct Species," features an article that I found particularly interesting and clarifying.  "Hunting for mammoth tusks."  Even though mammoths have not lived for thousands of years, some of their bodies- and tusks- are still preserved.  Below is a picture of a mammoth tusk that has been frozen in a Siberian riverbed for thousands of years.  Amazing!

For me, this article was, as I said, clarifying.  When my family and I visited some ivory shops in San Francisco there was often a small portion of the shop dedicated to mammoth ivory.  However, I found that strange as I knew mammoths had been extinct for thousands of years.  When I read this article, it all made sense!  Mammoth tusks are more common than you would think.  They can be found where the creatures used to roam such as northern Siberia.  The tusks are now being exposed to humans because of global warming, the melting of the ice there.  

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Letter To Pope Francis

His Holiness, Pope Francis,

00120 Vatican City State

Most Holy Father:

Congratulations on your recent installation as our new Pope!

My name is Ella Warburg, I am 13 years old and I am concerned about the dramatic increase in the demand for ivory tusks in Africa and Asia for religious objects. 

Those from many religions around the world have been coming together to try to stop elephant poaching, but lately there have been many news reports about a further escalation in violence against our largest land mammal.  Your Holiness’ leadership would be immensely influential at this time to reduce and eventually end elephant poaching and decrease the acceptance of ivory in religious icons.  

Catholics and non-Catholics, Christians and non-Christians all around the world would follow your Holiness’ example to stop these terrible crimes and sins against God’s creatures.

Thank you for your leadership, Pope Francis. 

Grazie! ¡Y gracias!

Congratulazioni! ¡Y felicitaciones!

Ella Warburg

eis4elephants@gmail.com

eis4elephants.blogspot.com

86 Elephants Dead In Chad

And yet another article about elephant slaughter published today.  How relentless is this news?  So far, in the past four days, more than 100 elephants have been killed for their ivory in Cameroon and Chad alone.  

We NEED to stop this!

Poachers in Chad Slaughter 86 Elephants, Cut Out Ivory

"The International Fund for Animal Welfare reports that poachers in Chad slaughtered 86 elephants, including 33 pregnant females, in less than a week and hacked out their ivory.

IFAW says it's the worst killing spree of elephants since early 2012 when poachers from Chad and Sudan killed as many as 650 elephants in a matter of weeks in Cameroon's Bouba Ndjida National Park.

"This is completely shocking," said Céline Sissler-Bienvenu, Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in France and Francophone Africa (IFAW - www.ifaw.org).

"Elephants in Central Africa continue to be under siege from unscrupulous poachers. The killing of 86 elephants, including pregnant cows, is evidence of the callous brutality demanded to feed the appetite of the ivory trade," said Sissler-Bienvenu.

A CITES-led project that monitors about 40 percent of Africa's elephant population estimated that 17,000 elephants were illegally killed in 2011, and the report said the numbers are probably the same or greater for last year.

The report, "Elephants in the Dust — The African Elephant Crisis,"said criminal networks are increasingly active and entrenched in the trafficking of ivory between Africa and Asia. "Training of enforcement officers in the use of tracking, intelligence networks and innovative techniques, such as forensic analysis, is urgently needed."

A the recent meeting of CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, three African and five Asian nations were put on notice that they have failed to adequately crack down on the ivory trade, and that they must come up with a detailed and credible plan of action for curbing the trade across and within their borders. They must also meet those targets or face trade sanctions next year.

Jason Bell, Director of IFAW's Elephant Programme, said it's now almost inevitable that certain regions of Africa face the total decimation of their elephant populations.

"The poaching of elephants for their ivory is an issue of global significance, and needs a global response if we are to turn the killing fields of Central Africa into safe havens for elephants. This cannot happen in a vacuum. Ivory consuming nations - notably China - have to make a concerted effort to reduce the demand for ivory in their own backyards. Otherwise, the battle to save elephants will be lost," said Bell."

~Susan Wyatt

King 5 News

March 18, 2013 (Today)

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O' Elephant!

How cute is THAT!?  And, it's hand made!  Christine Jackovino made it especially for St. Patrick's Day!  Through Etsy, you can purchase it here, along with many other adorable items!

For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way -
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.

~Irish Blessing

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Today's New York Times Article

Our mothers would do anything for us.  And that's exactly what I thought when I first read this article.  The elephants' social structure is truly amazing.  However, the statistics in just the third paragraph alone are as far away from amazing as you can get.  It's another article about the terrible slaughter of elephants.  

Photo by Carl Safina in Amboseli National Park

"THERE is nothing a mother elephant will not do for her infant, but even she cannot protect it from bullets. About a year ago, poachers attacked a family of forest elephants in central Africa. The biologist who witnessed the attack told us that wildlife guards were completely outgunned. In the end, an elephant mother, riddled with bullets and trumpeting with pain and fear, was left to use her enormous body to shield her baby. Her sacrifice was for naught; the baby was also killed.

Such is the reality facing African forest elephants today.

This mother and child were just two of the tens of thousands of forest elephants that have been butchered over the past decade. A staggering 62 percent vanished from central Africa between 2002 and 2011, according to a study we have just published with 60 other scientists in the journal PLoS One. It was the largest such study ever conducted in the central African forests, where elephants are being poached out of existence for their ivory.

In China and other countries in the Far East, there has been an astronomical rise in the demand for ivory trinkets that, no matter how exquisitely made, have no essential utility whatsoever. An elephant’s tusks have become bling for consumers who have no idea or simply don’t care that it was obtained by inflicting terror, horrendous pain and death on thinking, feeling, self-aware beings.

One of us recently came face to face with this horror while walking through a forest in central Africa. The sickening stench provided the first warning. As the smell grew more pungent, the humming sound of death that surrounds the body of a dead elephant became more pronounced: thousands of buzzing flies, laying eggs and feeding on the corpse. The body was grotesquely cloaked by white, writhing fly maggots; the belly was swollen with the gas of decay. The elephant’s face was a bloody mess, its tusks hacked out with an ax — an atrocity that is often committed while the animal is alive.

Both forest and savanna elephants, thought by some biologists to be separate species, have been killed off by poachers across vast areas of Africa, though it is the forest elephant at this point that is being pushed to extinction. The continuing slaughter of these animals means more than the loss of an iconic species. Forest elephants play a crucial ecological role in the life of the forests they inhabit, places of incredible biodiversity and one of earth’s most important carbon-sequestering regions.

These elephants are accomplished gardeners on a grand scale. As they move through their forest home, creating a network of trails used by other animals, they eat and scatter large quantities of seeds over many miles. Sprouting in countless piles of dung, new trees keep the forest healthy and contribute to the clean air we all like to breathe. Elephants also keep open salt-rich forest clearings that serve as giant salad bowls crucial for many animals, including gorillas.

While habitat destruction from the rapid increase in industrial agriculture looms for central Africa, the cataclysmic losses of forest elephants are almost entirely a result of poaching. This killing is also affecting behavior as these highly intelligent animals respond to the threats they face. They avoid roads not protected from poachers by wildlife guards. Once wide-ranging, the various population groups have become geographically isolated, hemmed in by a shroud of fear. They no longer garden on a grand scale, and they have been cut off from vital food, mineral and water resources they require to remain healthy. There is less time to feed and none for play or leisurely interactions between close and far-flung family.

Nor do young elephants develop secure social relationships when living in a state of terror, or mourning slain family members — and elephants do mourn. When mothers are killed, babies still dependent on their milk die slowly from starvation, heartbroken and alone. We increasingly see groups of young elephants without knowledgeable females accompanying them. Lost with these matriarchs are traditions and collective memories passed down through many thousands of generations that guide their offspring to that isolated salt lick or patch of fruiting trees that helped to sustain them.

Poaching is big business, involving organized-crime cartels every bit as ruthless as those trafficking narcotics, arms and people. Existing international laws against money laundering should be used to follow the money trail and to prosecute these criminals.

A universal attribute of humanity is compassion. We protect those in harm’s way. We need to show this compassion to forest elephants, giving them space to roam and protection from danger. Most crucially, people must stop buying ivory. If we do not act, we will have to shamefully admit to our children that we stood by as elephants were driven out of existence."

~Samantha Strindberg and Fiona Maisels

The New York Times

March 16, 2013

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Elephants In Art!

Today in downtown Danville there was an awesome elephant sculpture made out of recycled materials!  How cool is THAT!?   

I want to send out many thanks to Nicole E. and her amazing Mom for today's fun and taking me to see the elephant!

Antique Miniature Painting from India

Prince riding an elephant in procession

North India, c. 1570Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

African Elephants Chromolithograph Print
1894

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