Terrible news! Please read the last sentence in the second paragraph. I think that many people are oblivious to the fact that elephants are very close to extinction in quite a few places in the world!
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| Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim |
Jumbo Elephants may disappear from Tanzania within seven years if current poaching trends continue, Sabahi news service reports.
The Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute counted 109,000 elephants in 2009. In 2012, the number had sunk below 70,000. This is due to a surge in poaching. Elephant ivory commands high prices on the international black market. If current trends continue, the elephants could be entirely wiped out within seven years.
The decline in elephants is a step backwards. In the 1980s, during a period of heavy poaching and lax enforcement, the population dipped as low as 55,000. Thanks to better legal enforcement and protection, elephants made a major recovery. Now all that hard work may be ruined.
This comes after sobering news that rhinos are now extinct In Mozambique's Limpopo National Park. These localized extinctions make it hard for species to maintain a viable population. Groups of animals get smaller and further separated, reducing the available breeding stock.
More detail on the elephant situation in Tanzania can be found in this government report.
~Sean McLachlan
Gadling
May 4, 2013
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