Day 392- Forward Movements!

Hello, everyone! I hope you all have been well :)

Some big new came out yesterday- all of Japan's ivory must be registered! 

You can read the article below, from Reuters, to learn more of the story! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Reuters) - Online selling and weak controls on domestic ivory sales in Japan are spurring illegal international trade in elephant tusks and contributing to a steep rise in poaching, activists said on Tuesday.

A lack of rules regulating the registration of raw ivory and the licensing of importers, wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers has allowed illicit stocks into Japan's domestic market, according to the report by the independent London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

Under current rules, only whole elephant tusks must be registered with Japan's Environmental Agency.

"Japan's ivory controls are flawed and there is evidence that large amounts of illegal ivory ... have been laundered into the domestic market," said the report, which was co-authored by animal welfare group Humane Society International.

"The current African elephant poaching crisis requires an urgent and swift response before populations are wiped out. The flourishing domestic ivory markets of Japan and China are now the key driving force behind Africa's poaching epidemic and global illegal ivory trade."

According to a 2013 study by the University of Washington, the annual number of African elephants being slaughtered to supply the illegal ivory trade is estimated to be as high as 50,000, or roughly one sixth of the continent's remaining elephant population.

International trade in ivory is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but its growth is being fuelled by legal domestic markets in countries such as Japan and China, where trade is being supported by the advance of e-commerce.

U.S. President Barack Obama in February announced new restrictions on the commercial import of African elephant ivory, as well as on what sport hunters can bring back to the country.

Much of the ivory imported into Japan goes into making traditional name stamps, called hankos, that are used in lieu of signatures on documents.

The EIA said between 2005 and 2010, illegal ivory accounted for up to 87 percent of ivory hankos produced in Japan.

It named Japanese website Rakuten Ichiba as the world's top marketplace for elephant ivory, citing more than 28,000 advertisements for products. Rakuten Ichiba is Japan's biggest online shopping site with more than 87 million members.

Rakuten Ichiba is owned by Japan-headquartered Rakuten Group, which also owns British based Play.com, Canadian e-reader firm Kobo, and has a stake in social media site Pinterest.

Rakuten Group did not respond to several requests for comment.

"Amazon and Google have stopped all sales or advertisements of whale, dolphin and ivory through their Japanese e-commerce sites, and Rakuten must do the same," the EIA said.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo in London; editing by William Hardy)

Go make a difference!

Day 391- Happy World Wildlife Day!

Today, March 3 is.... World Wildlife Day!

Take this day, in particular, to think about all of the amazing animals roaming this earth.  

Poaching is not acceptable.  Overfishing is not acceptable.  Deforestation is not acceptable.  Killing is not acceptable.  

Our animals will only stay if we protect them- so let's protect them!  

Happy WWD!

Go make a difference!

Day 390- • For The Dreamers •

These quotes below perfectly sum up how I feel.  I can't wait until there are no more wars, killing of animals and people unnecessarily, and weapons.

I can never stop dreaming.  

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

~John Lennon 

"Imagine"

~ • ~ • ~ • ~

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me. 

~The Muppets

"Rainbow Connection"

Go make a difference!

Day 389- Happy Valentine's Day From The Eles!

Happy Valentine's day!  Let's show our love to the world!!!

(CNN) -- The African elephant, one of the world's most majestic animals, is in danger. In the early 1900s, 5 million elephants roamed the African continent. Then the ivory trade drove them to the brink of extinction, with 90% of African elephants killed for the ivory in their tusks.

In 1989, the world reacted, imposing a ban on the international trade in ivory passed by the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Elephant populations stabilized. But today, driven by growing demand for ivory ornaments and carvings in Asia, particularly in China, elephant poaching has returned with a vengeance.

Rob Portman

The largest slaughter in one year since the 1989 ban was passed happened in 2012, with up to 35,000 elephants killed. This adds up to nearly 100 a day. Tens of thousands are killed every year. Without action, the day may come when this magnificent creature is known only in history books.

Estimates say if elephants continue to be slaughtered at today's rates, the creatures could be extinct in a decade.Not only do elephants die. The wildlife rangers who try to protect them from poachers are being killed.

The illicit trade in ivory -- "white gold" -- is a billion dollar industry, and because it is illegal, it tends to attract some very bad actors. It is blood ivory: Al-Shabaab, a wing of al Qaeda based in Africa that is responsible for continued instability in Somalia, is known to finance its operations through the poaching of elephants. Al-Shabaab raises an estimated $600,000 a month through the ivory trade. The Lord's Resistance Army, another terrorist group infamous for forcing children to fight in its ranks, also engages in poaching and trafficking of elephant ivory.

Al-Shabaab raises an estimated $600,000 a month through the ivory trade.Rob Portman

Stopping the ivory trade has become not only a matter of conservation but one of national security and international stability.

Last year, the United Nations issued a report warning that elephant poaching is the worst it has been in a decade, while ivory seizures are at their highest levels since 1989. Last summer, President Barack Obama issued an executive order recognizing that the poaching of protected species and the illicit trade in ivory has become an international crisis that the United States must take a leading role in combating.

Saving elephants and other threatened species is a cause that cuts across partisan lines and international boundaries. We all have a part to play.

It starts in our personal lives.

The ivory trade prospers because there is a demand for luxury goods fashioned from it. As consumers, we should never buy products made with ivory and should encourage others to be mindful that their purchases are not illegally sourced through trafficking. And we should continue to shine a spotlight on the problem of illegal poaching and the threat it poses to African elephants and other species.

There are actions our government can take, as well. As co-chairman of the U.S. Senate International Conservation Caucus, I have worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to educate members of Congress on these ongoing problems and introduce legislation that authorizes proven conservation programs and directs resources to the international effort to dismantle the machinery of illegal poaching.

The Conservation Reform Act is part of this effort. If passed, it would streamline and increase the effectiveness of our existing international conservation efforts. I am also working to reauthorize the Saving Vanishing Species Stamp, which raises funds for the protection of threatened animals and their habitat at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

Over the years, we have watched as the actions of a few shortsighted, malicious and greedy people have nearly destroyed whole species. If we act now, we can make sure that the African elephant doesn't become another sad entry on a long list of animals we can never bring back.

~ Rob Portman

CNN News

February 8, 2014

Go make a difference!

Day 387- Welcome to Russia

Who is as excited as me for the olympics!?!  

As we can gather as a globe for sport, surely we can gather as a planet committed to preservation of our plants and animals!

Go make a difference!

Day 386- Words of Wisdom 2.0

Believe in yourself, and the rest will fall into place. Have faith in your own abilities, work hard, and there is nothing you cannot accomplish.

~Brad Henry

•~•~•~•

Enough said. 

Hope everybody has a great Friday! 

Go make a difference! 

Day 385- Words of Wisdom

"If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk.  If you can't walk, then crawl.  But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

The world would have been so different if Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't stand up for what he believed in.  It's different times now, but you still never know the impact you could make!

(As some of my readers know, I love coming across inspiring quotes.  I had to share this one with everybody as it's one of my favorites!)

Go make a difference!

Day 384- Send 'Em Off To Hawaii!

Hello all!  I recieved this email today and I wanted to pass the information on to all of my readers! I encourage you all to send a letter to Hawaii!!!

DEAR ADVOCATES - PLEASE HELP HAWAII END THE IVORY TRADE!

"Hawaii, as the 2nd largest retailer of ivory in the nation, has the chance to protect elephants from their continued massacre for the blood ivory trade! Send a polite email to EDBtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov and ask the Committee to PLEASE SUPPORT HB2183. This is a global crisis and Hawaii can take the national lead in protecting elephants!" - HSUS

We have some fantastic news to share with you, but it also came with an urgent request! Last night, the HSUS (Humane Society of the United States) learned that their Hawaii bill ending ivory sales will be heard in a committee hearing this coming Tuesday (Feb 4)! That gives us all less than three days to muster as much support as possible for this important bill.

HB2183 would end the import, sale, offer to sell, or possession with intent to sell any ivory product. It will be heard by the House Committee on Economic Development & Business on Feb 4. Here is the link to the bill text: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2014/Bills/HB2183_.pdf

PLEASE email the committee and URGE the support of State Bill: HB2183. We have less than 3 days to act, the bill will be heard in committee on the 4th! Everyone can write/email. This is an International Effort!

Please copy and paste the sample letter below and email it to the following:

EDBtestimony@capitol.hawaii.gov

reptsuji@capitol.hawaii.gov
repward@capitol.hawaii.gov
reprhoads@capitol.hawaii.gov

...and ask to support an end of the ivory trade in Hawaii through supporting HB2183

If you have questions, please write:
march.for.elephants@gmail.com (San Francisco)
OR
elephantsdc@gmail.com (DC)

Warmly, 
March for Elephants San Francisco

~ SAMPLE LETTER BELOW ~

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Sirs, 
 

Greetings! I hope this finds you well.

PLEASE SUPPORT HB2183! Ivory is (primarily) the outcome of poaching. The unmitigated and relentless poaching of African elephants. It is well established that poaching (also) sponsors terrorism. I am urging your committee to encourage enforcing an end to the trade and importation of ivory (whether raw or vanity) in and to the state of Hawaii. 

It is with great pride and much aloha that I support this effort by the HSUS to end the ivory trade in the Aloha State, unfortunately a "top" ivory market in the USA, possibly next only to New York and perhaps ahead of San Francisco.

I write on behalf of all victims, human and animal alike, of the horrific poaching crisis in Africa. Poaching sponsors terrorism, kills 35,000+ elephants each year, 100 a day and an astounding 1 every fifteen minutes; The elephant, a keystone species and Earth’s grandest terrestrial herbivore is slated for extinction in the wilds of Africa within 10 years. Amongst the human victims of poaching are the 1000+ rangers who were murdered in the line of duty in the past 10 years alone. 
 

It is also well established that the killing of critically endangered wild animals and the sale of their body parts is funding terrorism - which includes the recent Westgate mall attack and the killing of innocent human victims in Nairobi, Kenya. 

A compassionate, progressive and dynamic state, a state of by and for the people, I am confident the Aloha state will do the right thing by Earth's last elephants, the people of the continent of Africa, the people of the world and the people of Hawaii. 
 

As global citizens, as the gateway to the east, the Aloha state and the USA must take on a strong and unequivocal leadership role to end the ivory trade immediately. 

I thank you for your time and efforts and thank the HSUS for its initiative on this most critical issue. 

Be well and Mahalo nui loa.

Warmly.
Your name
Your Country etc.

Go make a difference!

Day 383- Part Two of Female Leadership

A survival advantage

As the Amboseli population has thrived, matriarchs have become older and families larger under their leadership. A family’s propensity to spend time with other families within the network has declined. Analyses of elephant networks by Vicki Fishlock, a resident scientist with the AERP, suggests matriarchs become less gregarious and more conservative in their old age.

When it comes to survival, however, having a wise old matriarch to lead you is just as important as having other elephants to learn from in a wide social network. And the two influences are intertwined, because that matriarch determines who is in your network. “Good matriarch decisions balance the needs of the group, avoiding unnecessary travel while remembering when and where good resources are available,” Fishlock says. Studies in Amboseli have revealed that families with older, larger matriarchs range over larger areas during droughts, apparently because these females better remember the location of food and water resources. “The matriarch has a very strong influence on what everybody does,” she says, though exactly how they communicate their will to the group remains a mystery.

The idea that groups led by older matriarchs might have a survival advantage is supported by a study of elephants in Tangarire National Park in Tanzania. In 1993, infant elephant death rates rose from an annual average of just 2 percent to around 20 percent during a nine-month period of drought. With their dry-season refuge parched, some family groups stayed in the park while others made off for places unknown. Young mothers were far more likely than older ones to stay put and to lose calves, and families that migrated out of the park had lower mortality than those that remained. Since matriarchs lead long-distance group movements, this suggests that older females provide a survival advantage for their extended family.

More recent and direct evidence of the benefits of wise old matriarchs has come from Karen McComb at Britain’s University of Sussex. Using recordings of lions roaring, she tested the responses of Amboseli matriarchs of different ages in the social context of their family group. Elephants encounter lions infrequently, but they are one of the few predators that pose a real threat, especially for young calves. That threat is enhanced if the lion is male, because males, unlike females, are capable of overpowering a young elephant even when hunting alone. McComb found that older elephants — age 60 and older — seemed to listen longer to male than female roars, and their groups huddled together more frequently and closely than did those of younger matriarchs. This suggests that elephants defer to the knowledge of their elders and that matriarchs call the shots in deciding which anti-predator strategy to adopt, she says.

Older matriarchs also seem to be better at judging “stranger danger” from other elephants. At Amboseli, each family group encounters about 25 other families in the course of the year, representing about 175 other adult females. Encounters with less-familiar groups can be antagonistic, and if a family anticipates possible harassment it assumes a defensive formation called bunching. In one experiment, her team found that families led by older matriarchs were less reactive overall but bunched more in response to the sound of less-familiar individuals than did families led by younger females. They suspect this is because older matriarchs have a larger memory catalogue for elephant voices, allowing them to more precisely distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar ones, and respond appropriately.

Built to lead

There may be more to good leadership than just the wisdom that comes with age, though. Elephants appear to have personalities; Moss and Phyllis Lee from Scotland’s University of Stirling wonder whether certain character traits might be associated with effective leadership. They have identified 26 traits possessed by elephants — such things as confidence, fearfulness, opportunism and aggression — that group into four main personality dimensions: playfulness, gentleness, constancy and leadership. So far, they have analyzed just 11 adult females from one Amboseli family, and the matriarch does score highly in the leadership dimension. By assessing more elephant families, the researchers hope to identify the traits shared by the most and least successful matriarchs.

If effective leadership is important in Amboseli, it is even more crucial in parts of Africa where threats are greater. During the 1980s, poaching halved Africa’s elephant population. Things improved after activists and researchers alerted the world and helped bring about an international trade ban on ivory in 1989. However, in recent years poaching has been on the increase again. The oldest animals with the largest tusks are prime targets.

An inkling of the potentially dire consequences of killing matriarchs for ivory comes from Mikumi National Park in Tanzania, where elephants were heavily poached before 1989. In 2008, a team of researchers reported that elephant groups hardest hit by poaching had younger matriarchs, weaker social bonds and lower relatedness. Analysis of their feces revealed high levels of glucocorticoids, indicating chronic stress. And compared with groups with intact social structures, only half as many females had infants younger than 2. The stress of family disruption had clearly reduced their reproductive success.

Losing a leader

We do not yet know the full extent of the damage caused by the killing of wise old matriarchs. Given that they are instrumental in keeping their groups fed, watered, safe and reproducing, their entire social network will feel the loss. But studies suggest that despite disruptions to social structure, the elephants and their networks are resilient over the long term. They can and will recover if poaching pressure can be lifted, but that is a big “if.” Matriarchs may be adept at solving the problems faced by the elephants that look to them for leadership, but at the moment humans are their greatest problem.

This is an edited version of a story that appeared in New Scientist.

~Lesley Evans Ogden and The Scientist

January 27, 2014

The Washington Post

Go make a difference!

Day 382- Part One of Female Leadership

Due to their beautiful, long tusks, male elephants are targets for the poachers.  However, once the bulls are all gone, the next victims are going to be the matriarchs.  The matriarch- an old, wise, female elephant- is what one would consider the leader.  She is extremely important to all of the elephants- you can read more below! 

What Elephants Can Teach Us About The Importance of Female Leadership

It has long been clear that elephant groups rely on their elder stateswomen, but just how important these females are is only gradually becoming apparent. Matriarchs are at the hub of a complex social network, and we are now getting insights into the nature of the ties that bind these close-knit groups and the key role that wise old leaders play in enhancing the survival of their members.

Matriarchs carry with them a trove of crucial information. They have a unique influence over group decision-making. And, like human leaders, the most successful may even possess certain personality traits. Much of what we know about elephant social life comes from research done at Amboseli National Park in Kenya, where the population lives in conditions close to a natural, undisturbed state. But this is unusual. Across Africa, elephant numbers are dwindling as demand for ivory has surged in recent years. Once poachers have killed the biggest males, mature matriarchs are their next targets. What happens to a group that loses its matriarch is not clear.

Elephant family unit

Amboseli’s elephants number around 1,400. They roam over approximately 3,000 square miles, inside and outside the park, and across international boundaries. These are the world’s longest-studied elephants. Nobody knows them better than Cynthia Moss, who has led the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) since she founded it in 1972. In particular, Moss and her colleagues have discovered much about elephant families and their social interactions. “Our studies show how absolutely crucial matriarchs are to the well-being and success of the family,” she says.

At Amboseli, the elephant family unit, consisting of a mother and her immature young, sometimes along with sisters, aunts and grandmothers, is the core of elephant society. Within family groups, which range in size from two to more than 20, the oldest, most experienced female takes the lead. But group size is constantly changing, responding to the seasons, the availability of food and water, and the threat from predators. An adult female elephant might start the day feeding with 12 to 15 individuals, be part of a group of 25 by mid-morning, and 100 at midday, then go back to a family of 12 in the afternoon, and finally settle for the night with just her dependent offspring. Known as a fission-fusion society, it is a complex social dynamic relatively rare in the animal kingdom but not uncommon in primates, including humans.

It has long been assumed that the structure of the wider social network grows out of natural patterns of mother-offspring associations, where daughters remain within their group for life while sons strike out on their own as teenagers. A team led by Beth Archie from Duke University decided to test this idea. By genetically analyzing fecal and tissue samples from 236 elephants at Amboseli, they determined how closely related they were to each other and then superimposed the familial ties onto observed patterns of association. They found a remarkable fit, indicating that the more closely related individuals are, the more time they tend to spend with one another. So, at Amboseli at least, a matriarch heads a group of her immediate relatives, and the social network extends beyond this core family unit.

~Lesley Evans Ogden and The Scientist

January 27, 2014

The Washington Post

Go make a difference!

Day 381- The Ivory Coast

DAKAR, Senegal — After being tranquilized and loaded onto trucks with cranes, elephants that have been squeezed out of their traditional habitat in Ivory Coast are being relocated by conservationists in what is reportedly the first such operation attempted in Africa’s forests.

Ivory Coast is so enamored of elephants that its national soccer team is nicknamed after them. A tusker is prominently displayed on the national coat of arms. The country is even named after the ivory trade, underscoring how the giant mammals once proliferated in the West African nation.

Ivory Coast has not conducted a recent census to determine how many forest elephants are left in the country, but conservationists estimate there only are a few hundred. In Central Africa, their populations have been devastated by poaching in recent years.

The elephants being relocated were forced out of the Marahoue National Park by human migration possibly related to the West African country’s 2010-11 postelection violence, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. This week, the group began tranquilizing elephants outside the western town of Daloa, then locking them in a crate for the 10-hour drive to Assagny National Park on the country’s southern coast.

The dozen or so elephants targeted for relocation moved near Daloa two years ago and began wreaking havoc, destroying crops and killing two people including a small boy who accidentally stumbled upon elephant calves, prompting their mother to attack, IFAW said.

One calf is among those to be tranquilized and moved, the organization said. People gathered around in the red-dirt village of Daloa on Monday to watch the spectacle of an elephant being loaded onto the back of a large red truck.

Forest elephants are smaller than the savannah elephants found in Africa’s eastern and southern regions. They have more oval-shaped ears and straighter tusks, and occupy dense forests stretching from Central African Republic to Liberia.

Elephants are widely cherished as Ivory Coast’s national animal, and the government contacted the animal welfare organization for help to solve the problem without hunting the elephants down and contributing to the ongoing decline of forest elephant populations throughout the region, said Celine Sissler-Bienvenu, IFAW’s director for Francophone Africa.

“This relocation solves a major conservation problem by contributing to the safety and well-being of both the animals and humans,” Sissler-Bienvenu said.

Similar projects have been undertaken for savannah elephants in southern Africa, but until this week relocation had not been attempted for the forest elephants of West and Central Africa, the Washington D.C.-based organization said.

~The Washington Post

January 24, 2014

Go make a difference!

Day 380- The Loss

This is a map of wars or insurrections in Africa since 1994 from The Economist.  

The guns are funded by illegal poaching.  We all suffer from the loss of these animals.  

Go make a difference!

Day 379- A Used Up World

"What good is a used up world,

And how could it be worth having?"

~Sting, "All This Time"

Go make a difference!

Day 378- Stand Up For What You Believe In

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.  Intelligence plus character- that is the goal of true education."

~Martin Luther King, Jr. 

You and I - we are here to share our knowledge to others.  It is our responsibility to teach the world about the poaching of elephants, rhinos, bears, large cats, and all other animals.  

Spread the word about poaching, and stand up for what you believe in, just like the great Martin Luther King Jr. 

Go make a difference!

Day 377- The Study of Elephants

Andrea Turkalo is a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. She is based in the Central African Republic but recently had to flee to the United States. She says violence is the latest blow to efforts to save the region's forest elephants. The society's online campaign to conserve elephants is called 96 Elephants.

Richard Schiffman: How did you come to study elephants in the Central African Republic?
Andrea Turkalo: It was an accident. I never thought I would study elephants, but I happened to be in the right place about 30 years ago—the Dzanga Bai forest clearing. It is the most phenomenal location to see forest elephants in the world. So I stayed.

RS: You work on the Elephant Listening Project. What does it do?
AT: Elephants are very vocal. We use acoustical monitoring to track them in the forest where we cannot see them.

RS: What do we know about elephant chitchat?
AT: The females do most of the talking, so to speak. There's no syntax in their language, and we don't think they form sentences, but they can recognize one another's voices. Elephants sometimes use frequencies that humans can't hear—these are the sounds that travel the farthest in the forest.

RS: You recently had to flee violence in the area. How has it affected the elephants?
AT: Former members of Séléka, a disbanded coalition of rebel groups, are terrorizing local villagers. They are also involved in poaching to help finance military operations. In May they came into Dzanga clearing and gunned down 26 elephants.

RS: Was poaching a problem before that?
AT: Yes. We have lost 60 percent of forest elephants in the Congo Basin to poaching during the first decade of this century. At that rate, they could go extinct within 10 years.

RS: Who's to blame for poaching?
AT: Nowadays, poaching is often run by international syndicates or by outsiders—refugees who have emigrated into our area from the savannah to the north. It appears to be very well-organized. We need a lot more intelligence on who these groups are and where the ivory is going.

RS: Are other countries involved?
AT: We think so. The Chinese have come into Central Africa in a big way for mineral extraction and logging. Wherever they go, we see elephant numbers decline. Nowadays, traffickers around the globe can go online and find out where these elephants live. Our research group recently put up a photo of a beautiful old male with huge tusks on its website. Immediately, we saw an extraordinarily high number of page hits from China and the Far East.

RS: How do local people view poaching?
AT: Poaching isn't always perceived as a real crime. When poachers are caught, a lot of the time they get their wrists slapped, spend a couple of weeks in jail, and are then released to continue the killing. Attitudes need to change.

RS: What can be done to halt the decline?
AT: We need a return to political stability coupled with the political will to support the wildlife rangers on the ground, and to get serious about punishing the poachers and the people they sell to. It's also vital to put a lot more pressure on China and other ivory consumers to eliminate demand.

~Richard Schiffman

New Scientist

January 19, 2014

Go make a difference!

Day 376- The Facts 3.0

Here are some facts about our favorite species! 

African Elephant:

-Gestation Period- about 670 days

-Weight- about 12,000 pounds

-Height- about 3 feet (newborn)

               -about 9 feet (adult female)

               -about 11 feet (adult male)

-Lifespan- about 60-70 years

Asian Elephant:

-Gestation Period- about 550 days

-Weight- about 6,000 pounds

-Height- 6.5– 11.5 feet

-Lifespan- about 60 years

Go make a difference!

Day 375- The Unlucky Tale of Lucky

SAN ANTONIO — Lucky, the San Antonio Zoo's lone elephant, may be less fortunate than her name suggests, according to an international animal rights organization that Wednesday dubbed the local park the “worst zoo for elephants” in North America.

Lucky, 53, has been at the local zoo since the age of 2, according to San Antonio Express-News archives. She's been kept alone since her penmate Boo, a 59-year-old Asian elephant, died last March.

The group, In Defense of Animals, calls the zoo's decision to keep Lucky “in solitary confinement” since Boo's death “stubborn and selfish” because elephants are “profoundly social animals.”

An online petition on thepetitionsite.com website had gained 11,250 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.

San Antonio Zoo officials say that, despite being named the worst on the group's “Ten Worst Zoos for Elephants” for 2013, they believe the zoo's experienced veterinary staff is in a better position to determine conditions of its animals.

“We are firm believers that we know what's best for Lucky (rather) than whoever is putting the list together,” said spokeswoman Debbie Rios-Vanskike, adding that the zoo's focus isn't on a list but on what's best for all the animals in their care.

This is the sixth time in 10 years that the San Antonio Zoo makes the IDA's list of worst zoos for elephants.

In Defense of Animals, an international animal protection organization, also took issue with the size of Lucky's enclosure.

“The zoo is dumping $8 million into a centennial plaza aimed at making the place more fun for visitors, not more bearable for the animals,” the group wrote on its website.

The “Zootenial Plaza” will open to the public in March and commemorates the park's 100th year. The $8 million plaza will include a restaurant and custom-made carousel, according to its website.

There are a total of 27 elephants in zoos in Texas, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits 223 zoos in the world. San Antonio's AZA accreditation is current, through March 2018.

~Kolten Parker
mySA
January 16, 2014

Go make a difference!

Day 374- The Facts 2.0 According to The NYT

On a winter day in 2012, a man named John C. Fitzpatrick made his way to the fourth floor of 7 West 45th Street, to the offices of Raja’s Jewels, where he expected that he would find a cache of ivory.

Shopping in the diamond district over the previous two weeks, Mr. Fitzpatrick had learned that Raja’s, operating from a suite of offices, supplied a few retail stores. This was valuable information: Mr. Fitzpatrick was actually a lieutenant for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, its chief investigator in New York City. So he arrived at Raja’s with a search warrant, accompanied by investigators from the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Before the day was out, they had to send for a pickup truck. One of the investigators ran out to Staples to buy boxes. There was ivory in filing cabinets, piled on a floor in a back room. Close to a ton.

So much ivory, it filled 72 banker boxes.

That is: The contents of 72 boxes were essentially all that remained of more than 100 elephants that had been poached for their tusks — their incisor teeth, now transformed into beads and chess sets, bone-white animal figures, bangles and toys, charms and earrings, pendants and bracelets.

And that is: The largest land creatures on earth, slaughtered for trinkets, to the point where the African forest elephant could be extinct within a decade, according to Elizabeth Bennett, a species conservation scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

This dire situation exists even though international commercial trade in ivory has been outlawed by treaty since 1989, according to Dr. Bennett and other witnesses who testified on Thursday at a hearing held by the State Assembly.

“New York City has, by far, the largest market for ivory of any major U.S. city,” Dr. Bennett said. “In a 2008 study of the U.S. ivory trade, researchers found 124 outlets that sold more than 11,300 ivory products. This was in Manhattan alone.”

The city is a hub of trade for international poachers, who sell to both American and foreign markets. A man who lived as a hoarder in a tiny apartment in Flushing, Queens, bought $1 million in rhinoceros horn from an auction house in just one day. The rhino horn is prized in Asia as an aphrodisiac. The man was used as a straw purchaser for foreign buyers. Bear gall bladders are also heavily traded.

The hearing was called by Assemblyman Robert K. Sweeney, chairman of the Committee on Environmental Conservation, to ask experts how to improve the state’s law on the ivory trade.

It turns out that despite the 1989 ban, ivory can be legally sold if it was “harvested” before then. (While many animals can grow new horns, an elephant is killed in the removal of its tusks.) In theory, the state regulations require proof that the person selling ivory can show that he or she owned it before the ban. In practice, a permit can be obtained in perfunctory fashion, with a statement by an appraiser that the ivory is of the proper age.

There is no easy, inexpensive way to determine the age of a piece of ivory, according to Maj. Scott Florence, director of law enforcement for the Department of Environmental Conservation.

“I’ve seen pieces of ivory that have been stained to make them look as dark as this table,” Lieutenant Fitzpatrick testified, tapping on a table top that seemed to have a maple color.

One scientist testified that it might be practical to gauge the age of the animal that was the source of the ivory by testing for the presence of radioactive ions that were fallout from nuclear bomb tests in the late 1950s. That might provide an enforceable boundary line for sales, he suggested.

The illegal sale of ivory worth more than $1,500 is a Class E felony, the lowest felony there is, and is almost never accompanied by prison time. During the 2012 investigation in the diamond district, caches were found at three businesses: one worth $30,000; another worth $120,000; and the largest, at Raja’s, worth more than $2 million.

“You had three orders of magnitude, but all were charged with the same E felony,” Lieutenant Fitzpatrick testified. “It’s often the case that their lawyers tell them that they don’t have to talk to us because they are not going to jail anyway if they are tried and convicted.”

The owner of Raja’s, Mukesh Gupta, pleaded guilty. He was fined $45,000 for his ton of ivory.

He also forfeited the ivory, which is now being used for law enforcement training. New York City — the largest illegal-ivory market in the country — has a grand total of three state investigators.

~Jim Dwyer

The New York Times

January 16, 2014

Go make a difference!