elephants extinct in 10 years

I have been aware for too long of many great species facing extinction within my lifetime. Tonight the plight of elephants hit the news.What a barren desert we are leaving our grandkids.

Experts warn elephants will go extinct in 10 years.
Category: Africa, China, conservation, elephants, Ivory, Kenya
Date: June 24th 2013
By: ckiarie

According to a conservation organization Elephant Voices, Mainland China must immediately put to an end illegal trade of ivory, which going by the current rate of poaching of elephants, the elephants will be extinct within the next 10 years.

In a report by the Daily Mail, Dr. Joyce Poole says that the last one year has been the worst for elephant populations, as over 7% of the remaining elephants have already been killed for ivory.

Dr. Poole called on Mainland China to educate its people to refuse ivory, so as to save the lives of the remaining number of elephants which is about 400,000 elephants only. She also said that going by the current number of elephant deaths, they could as well be extinct within 10 years.

Dr. Poole told the South China Morning Post, so as to get ivory, the unscrupulous poachers kill almost 40,000 elephants in a year. She said: “If China does not take action, the elephants will soon be extinct. The situation is that serious.”

She said: “If we do not take care of Africa’s critical habitat which render the elephants helpless, will the conservation movement still have hope?”

She said Mainland China sees ivory as “white gold”, and also as a symbol of wealth and status.

The South China Morning Post reported that in the past 5 years, the Hong Kong Custom Officials have confiscated at least 16 tonnes of ivory destined for mainland China, which had the value of upwards of 7,000,000 British Pounds. So as to get this much ivory, one has to kill 1800 elephants.

Dr. Joyce Poole, who has researched on elephants for 40 years, says that researchers found that of all the elephant corpses found, 93% of them show that they died as a result of been killed by poachers.

She said: “Beijing authorities still believe that they are curbing the illegal ivory trade and are not playing any role in enhancing ivory trade. Ivory’s influence on China’s economy is not big compared to the huge implications arising from the elephants lost, on the future of African countries.

http://baraza.wildlifedirect.org/2013/06/24/experts-warn-elephants-will-go-extinct-in-10-years/