11 Articles found tagged with “elephants”.
A new surveying technique involving the use of satellite cameras has been used to count elephants. Automatic detection allows for vast areas to be surveyed much quicker, offering an alternative to human observers counting from low-flying planes.
A new study suggests that short-term trends in population size and distribution may not be the best way to judge a species extinction risk, if that species is a large, slow-breeding animal. Conservation decisions based on these trends may fail to protect them.
Hundreds of threatened species could be at risk of extinction because the time it takes for them to get protection from CITES against the illegal wildlife trade is too slow, and does not keep up to date with scientific knowledge.
For the first time, research has shown that Asian elephants are scared of honey bees. Like their counterparts in Africa, they respond with alarm, a finding that will help resolve conflict between humans and crop-raiding elephants.
Surveys carried out in Tanzania have revealed patterns of elephant poaching that will help inform future conservation action and help tackle the problem in the region.
Using population estimates from a wide range of sources, including aerial surveys and elephant dung counts, the findings show that estimates for 2015 are 93,000 lower than they were in 2006. The continental total number of elephants is now thought to be about 415,000.
All domestic and international ivory markets should be closed, according to the study, and government stockpiles of ivory that are located all over the world must be destroyed, as they are a significant source of ivory appearing in the illegal trade.
Poachers are decimating their populations to sell ivory to markets in the Far East. The lesser sized, and lesser known, African forest elephants however are also on the brink of becoming poached out of existence.
Traditional methods of deterring and punishing the professional poachers are clearly not working, so conservationists are now trying to fight them on a new front – economics.
Elephants can raid crops, damage water supplies, demolish homes and grain stores, and even kill or injure people and their livestock. People often retaliate in an effort to protect themselves and their livelihoods, by resorting to extreme measure such as poisoning and shooting elephants.