Snakes, and Wolves, and Elephants... Oh My!

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Critically Endangered Elephants Killed By Poison, Guns

Poachers are now relying on war weapons, poison, guns, and watermelons.  (See an interesting article about how watermelons kill elephants here)

Poisoned elephants

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Poisoning or shooting killed many of the 129 critically endangered elephants that have died on Indonesia's Sumatra island in less than a decade, highlighting weak enforcement of laws against poaching, an environmental group says.

WWF Indonesia said killings of Sumatran elephants are on the rise, with 29 either shot or poisoned last year, including 14 in Aceh province. The group said Tuesday that no one has been convicted or jailed in the deaths that were counted in Riau province since 2004.

The report came three days after two dead Sumatran elephants were found near a paper plantation in Riau, allegedly poisoned by poachers. Another elephant was killed last month near Tesso Nilo national park and its tusks were hacked off. An autopsy found a plastic detergent wrapper in its belly filled with poison.

 The group said 59 percent of the dead elephants were definitely poisoned, 13 percent were suspected to have been poisoned, and 5 percent were killed by gunshots. Others died from illness or other causes, or the reason for their death was unknown.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the animals as "critically endangered" after their numbers dropped to between 2,400 and 2,800 from an estimated 5,000 in 1985. Environmentalists say the elephants could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected.

The decline is largely due to destruction of their habitat. Forests across Sumatra are being logged for timber, palm oil, and pulp and paper.

Sumatra has some of the most significant populations of Asian elephants outside of India and Sri Lanka and is also home to tigers, orangutans and rhinos.

"Effective action on the ground should be taken immediately to protect Sumatran elephants from extinction, especially in Riau," the report said. There are about 300 elephants left in Riau, which is part of Sumatra island.

Achmad Saeroji, head of the government conservation agency in Riau, denied the allegation of lax law enforcement, saying at least eight cases have been handled by authorities recently.

"We always investigate every case of elephants found dead," he said. "But it is hard to capture the perpetrators, either because of late reports or the fear of people to report the poachers, who work in a network."

Indonesia's elephants sometimes venture into populated areas searching for food. They destroy crops or attack humans, making them unpopular with villagers. Some are shot or poisoned with cyanide-laced fruit, while others are killed by poachers for their ivory.

~The Boston Herald

June 4, 2013

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Kony Using Elephants To Support "Struggling Group"

In good news, Kony is struggling.  In bad news, he's using elephants to solve his problems!

In "The Sound Of Music," Reverend Mother says to Maria:

These walls were not built to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live.

In this case, Kony is using the elephants to shut out his problems.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Members of a militia run by fugitive African warlord Joseph Kony are killing elephants across Central Africa to support Kony's struggling group, according to a report by watchdog organizations that are urging the expansion of programs to encourage defections from the Lord's Resistance Army.

The Enough Project, the Satellite Sentinel Project and two other groups said in the report released Monday that the LRA has turned to elephant poaching "as a means to sustain itself," and that the militia uses money from the illegal trade in ivory to acquire food and other supplies.

"With prices at record-high levels, trading illegal ivory offers the LRA another way to sustain itself in addition to its habitual pillaging," the report said. "Former senior fighters who defected from the group report that the LRA trades ivory for arms, ammunition, and food."

The report said Kony, a cruel warlord who is accused of using boys as fighters and girls as sex slaves, gave the order to butcher elephants for their ivory as far back as 2010. Former captives say that LRA groups in Central African Republic and Congo "trade ivory with unidentified people who arrive in helicopters."

In February Ugandan troops operating in Central African Republic discovered six elephant tusks believed to have been hidden in the bush by the LRA. Ugandan army officials said at the time that they were acting on information given by an LRA defector who said Kony long ago instructed his fighters to find ivory and bring it to him.

Experts say that Africa's elephants are under increased threat from habitat loss and poachers motivated by rising demand for ivory in Asia. About 70 years ago, up to 5 million elephants are believed to have roamed sub-Saharan Africa. Today fewer than a million remain. The elephants of Central Africa, a region long plagued by armed conflict and lawlessness, are especially vulnerable. Much of the harvested ivory ends up as small trinkets.

The new report said Congo's expansive but poorly protected Garamba National Park, which once was used by LRA commanders as safe haven, is the source of some of the ivory that ends up before Kony. But Garamba's elephants also are being targeted by "members of the armed forces of (Congo), South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda," the report said, citing the concerns of park rangers there.

It said the LRA is part of "the larger poaching crisis that puts wild African elephants at risk of local extinction."

Facing pressure from U.S.-backed African Union troops tasked with eliminating its leaders, the LRA —which used to have several thousand men — is now degraded and scattered in small numbers in Congo, South Sudan, and Central African Republic. Fewer than 500 LRA rebels are still active in the bush, according to the Ugandan military, but they can conduct hit-and-run operations that terrorize villagers and move across the region's porous borders in small groups.

Kony himself is believed to be highly mobile, but the U.S.-based watchdog group Resolve said in a report in April that he recently directed killings from an enclave protected by the Sudanese military. Until early this year, Resolve's report said, Kony and some of his commanders were operating in Kafia Kingi, a disputed area along the Sudan-South Sudan border where African troops tasked with catching Kony don't have access. Sudan's government denies this charge.

Kony, whose rebellion originated in Uganda before spreading to other parts of Central Africa, was indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Last year he became the focus of international attention after the advocacy group Invisible Children released a popular online video highlighting LRA crimes and calling for Kony to be stopped from recruiting children.

Some 100 U.S. military advisers are helping Uganda-led African troops to hunt down Kony and other LRA commanders. Their mission was recently set back by a change in government in Central African Republic, where former rebels who now control the country are reportedly hostile to foreign troops. Anti-Kony operations there have been suspended since April, raising fears among watchdog groups that the LRA could use the opportunity to recruit or regroup.

Poaching has also been rampant in the Dzanga-Sangha reserve in the rainforests of southwestern Central African Republic where more than 3,400 forest elephants roam, conservationists have reported. The political chaos since March has allowed poaching to escalate, and anti-poaching rangers who fled the rebel-controlled areas said that Sudanese hunters are now working in tandem with the armed rebels who overthrew the government in March.

~RODNEY MUHUMUZA

Yahoo News

June 3, 2013

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My Elephant Lifestyle!

Because I love elephants, I seem to find them quite often in my possessions!  Here are a few of my favorites!

Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer case

.......And hand sanitizer!
P.S. Thanks, Cristina!

The book: Ella the Elegant Elephant

We know the author and illustrator, and he (Steven D'amico, illustrator) drew personalized pictures for my sister, Honor, and I!

My sister's drawing!

All of my elephant books!

My adoption certificate!  

My collection of elephant figurines!  A combination of a teapot, Calico Critters, and glass ones from my friends!
P.S. Thanks Abby!

Do you have any fun collections?  Tell me!  

eis4elephants@gmail.com

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The Truth In Poaching

Sad, but true.

"We cannot just shrug our shoulders and no longer be shocked by the human and environmental disasters unfolding before our very eyes."

Bonn — More civil unrest in Africa, another coup d'état, more reports of child soldiers in the front line, involvement of foreign troops, the poorest of the poor losing what little they have - and all the while the proceeds of a country's wealth are diverted from much-needed social and economic development to financing death and destruction. It is an all too familiar tale, a previous though somewhat different chapter of which was brought to the attention of a wider audience through Edward Zwick's film "Blood Diamond".

Zwick recounted the story of the civil war in Sierra Leone, where the conflict was financed through the illegal trafficking of precious stones. National Geographic and World Wide Fund for Nature have already likened this trade to recent developments.

Now, however, it is not Africa's mineral wealth but its wildlife resources that are being misused - for "blood diamond" read "blood ivory". And it is the blood of Africa's fast-diminishing population of elephants that is being spilled.

In February 2012, around 200 elephants were killed in Cameroon's Bouba N'Djida National Park. Outgunned by well-armed militiamen, the rangers were powerless to protect the animals, which were killed for their valuable tusks.

In January 2013 an entire family of elephants - 11 adults and a calf - was slaughtered in the worst single incident of its kind to have occurred in Kenya since the 1980s, an event described as "an unimaginable, heinous crime" by the Kenyan Wildlife Service.

Two months later 86 elephants were reported killed in the course of a single week in south-western Chad on their migration to the Central African Republic and Cameroon. The poachers were armed with AK47s and used hacksaws to remove the tusks.

The latest incident to reach the ears of the world's media in April 2013 has seen at least 26 elephants killed at Dzanga Bai, a clearing in the forest which acts as a wildlife viewing site in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic (CAR). The site is inscribed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List and is located near the borders with Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo.

Disaster fatigue is a real danger here. We cannot just shrug our shoulders and no longer be shocked by the human and environmental disasters unfolding before our very eyes.

~All Africa
June 1, 2013

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Speeding Train Kills at Least Three in India

Moral of the story: take time to save the elephants; no need to speed!

New Delhi (CNN) -- A train speeding through a forested corridor in India's West Bengal killed three elephants and another is in a critical condition, a wildlife official said Friday.

A baby elephant was among the animals killed in the pre-dawn collision in India's Jalpaiguri district some 620 kilometers (385 miles) north of the state capital Kolkata, said V.K. Sood, chief conservator of forests in West Bengal state.

Another elephant is still in a critical condition after the train plowed into part of a herd crossing the tracks, he said.

Concern over similar incidents had prompted railway authorities to restrict train speeds in the area to 25km an hour. However, the railway department has said a speed of 50km an hour was permissible in the area where the accident occurred.

Sood said an inquiry is now underway to determine the speed of the train that killed the elephants Thursday, he said, adding that investigators were also looking at the levels of visibility on the track at the time.

As many as 36 elephants have been killed by trains in the area since 2004, Sood said.

India's former rail minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said in a Railway Budget speech in February the department needed to make special provision to protect what he called "these gentle giants."

"The railway family is deeply grieved by some incidents of death of elephants on railway tracks passing through forest areas. Several measures have been initiated in consultation with the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which I am confident will substantially reduce such accidents and safeguard the lives of these gentle giants," he said.

He said the department had already proposed a bypass rail link around one reserve with a sizable elephant population.

Conservationists estimate that India has a wild population of some 25,000 Asiatic elephants but their habitat is increasingly under pressure as human settlements encroach on nature reserves.

India has recently witnessed a number of cases of wild animals entering urban environments. In one high-profile incident a leopard killed one person and injured two other after wandering into a residential area in northeast India.

~Harmeet Shah Singh

May 31, 2013

CNN News

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Comment, Share, or Like if YOU Love Elephants Too!

English: I love elephants! ­­

Spanish: Me encanta elefantes!

Croatian: Volim slonova!

Czech: Miluji slony!

Danish: Jeg elsker elefanter!

French: J'aime des éléphants!

German: Ich liebe Elefanten!

Greek: Λατρεύω ελέφαντες!

Irish: Is breá liom elephants!

Italian: Io amo gli elefanti!

Japanese: 私はゾウが大好き！

Korean: 나는 코끼리를 사랑합니다!

Latin: Amo elephantis!

Norwegian: Jeg elsker elefanter!

Persian: من عاشق فیل!

Russian: Я люблю слонов!

Swedish: Jag älskar elefanter!

Turkish: Ben filler seviyorum!

Vietnamese: Tôi yêu con voi!

Welsh: Rwyf wrth fy modd eliffantod!

Yiddish: איך ליבע עלאַפאַנץ!
Lithuanian :Aš myliu dramblius!
Maltese: I imħabba iljunfanti!

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55 Killed This Year in Tsavo

A few day's ago, I did a post stating that 11 elephants were killed in Tsavo recently.  Today's featured article updates that number: at least 55 have been killed since the beginning of the year!  

At least 55 elephants have been killed in Tsavo and Taita ranches since the beginning of this year, Taita Taveta governor John Mruttu has said.

Addressing hoteliers and caterers at a meeting held at the Sarova Taita Hills game lodge in Mwatate, Mruttu said the continued poaching of elephants and other game will have an adverse impact on tourism in the country.

"The situation is disturbing as three elephants are being killed every week," he said.

However, KWS senior assistant director in charge of the Tsavo conservation area, Julius Kimani, said only 34 elephants have been killed in the region.

Mruttu said improved mobile communication has made the fight against poachers more difficult.

"More poaching is happening in areas where mobile telephone connectivity is good. Before the phones came in, poachers used to hide ivory in villages while finding ways to access their markets but they can now easily call a boda boda and ferry the contraband," he said.

Mruttu said most of the elephants have been killed in private ranches where illegal poachers operated.

Amboseli and Tsavo region association of Hotel keepers and caterers chairperson Willy Mwadilo expressed fears that wildlife was under serious depletion due to poaching.

~Raphael Mwadime

The Star

May 29, 2013

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Senator Slams Circus Use of Endangered Elephants

This article is very interesting, as it brings up the topic of abuse of Asian Elephants.  They are endangered too!  African Elephants seem to get a lot of attention... but the Elephas maximus (Asian Elephant) needs our help as well!

Jordi Guillot, a senator for the Catalan Green Socialist party and member of the Parliamentary Association for the Protection of Animals, has slammed Spanish circuses for their use of thirteen endangered Asian elephants.

Europa Press revealed on Friday that the politician had filed an official parliamentary question calling on the government to put an end to the big top employment of the protected pachyderms, listed as a critically-endangered species in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

According to InfoCircus, a platform created by animal welfare NGOs including the Born Free Foundation, the elephants were born in the wild and as a result are not allowed to be used commercially.

Asian elephants, which can be told from African elephants by their comparatively smaller ears, have declined in number by at least 50% over the last three generations.

Guillot noted that the European Commission had confirmed circuses as a specific example of the type of "commercial use" prohibited under CITES, which is fully ratified in the EU, in response to a written question from an MEP.

In his question to parliament he argued: "If the Commission interprets the Convention in this way, member states should apply it."

He added that the use of Asian elephants should also be prohibited in advertising and requested clarification from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness on what they defined as "commercial use".

He also asked why Spain does not forbid the use of Asian elephants in circuses when the European Commission does.

~Steve Tallantyre

The Local 

May 24, 2013

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