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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 24 2016, @12:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the tusk-tusk-tusk dept.

A recent survey of savanna elephant populations estimated that poachers killed 30,000 animals annually between 2007 and 2014, reducing the population to fewer than 400,000. Overall, researchers estimate that African elephant numbers have plummeted more than 95% over the past century.

[...] Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa—are expected to offer proposals for restarting a legal ivory trade. All argue that some elephant populations are healthy enough to be managed for ivory production. The proposals envision taking tusks from both animals that are intentionally killed—sometimes because they become nuisances, trampling crops and threatening people—and those that die naturally.

A study in Current Biology concludes that the demand for ivory far exceeds any sustainable harvest model and that there is a high risk that lifting the ivory ban will make things worse. The authors note that attempts must be made to reduce the demand for ivory:

At the same time, we cannot brush aside the fact that poaching has reached industrial scale fuelled by an increase in consumer demand driven by the rise of the middle class in countries like China. We must urgently work on finding ways to change consumer behavior as the only avenue by which we can resolve the ivory trade tragedy.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/legalizing-ivory-trade-wont-save-elephants-study-concludes
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)31005-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_ivory


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  • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday October 24 2016, @05:50PM

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 24 2016, @05:50PM (#418224)

    I'm amazed there are enough preserved mammoths being found to even make this an issue. I thought they were pretty rare. Apparently they're just tripping over them in Siberia. Thanks, global warming!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @07:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @07:29PM (#418254)

    Thanks, global warming!

    You apparently missed the memo: while it was "global cooling" in the 1990s, "global warming" in the 2000s, now it's "climate change". From now on, as long as the weather changes AT ALL, we'll be able to impose our taxes on human breat^W^W carbon dioxide. We've finally figured out how to charge for breathing air - thanks Total Recall!

    • (Score: 2) by julian on Monday October 24 2016, @07:44PM

      by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 24 2016, @07:44PM (#418261)

      Climate change is the more accurate term because, while global average temperature increases due to human activity (this is no longer controversial except among the willfully ignorant or the duplicitous), some areas will experience more extreme weather in the opposite direction. This is not a contradiction or a moving goalpost.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @08:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24 2016, @08:01PM (#418268)

      Ho ho ho, how I never been more willing to come back in the future and say "you were right, it was nonsense," even thou you make jest of serious situation. I want my children to grow up on a planet that can sustain them, not to have to live like street-shitters from the Third World, so while I know you are wrong I hope that you are not.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @03:08AM (#418377)

      You apparently missed the memo: while it was "global cooling" in the 1990s, "global warming" in the 2000s, now it's "climate change".

      IIRC, we started using "climate change" not because "global warming" was inaccurate, but because politicians insisted that it was alarmist and should not be used as it could, I dunno, scare people into doing something, I guess.