28 Forest Elephants Killed by Poachers in Cameroon, all to feed Asia's ivory trinket lust. This must

[Flaxbee]

stop. Somehow, dear god, this has got to stop.

Sometimes I loathe and despise humans.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2013/0313/28-elephants-killed-by-poachers-in-Cameroon

Poachers have killed 28 endangered forest elephants in the Nki and Lobeke national parks in southeast Cameroon in recent weeks, the conservation organization WWF said on Wednesday.
With demand for ivory rising from Asia, poachers have reduced the population of Africa's forest elephants by 62 percent over the last decade, putting the species on track for extinction, conservationists say.
The parks of southeast Cameroon, along with parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, have some of the last significant populations of forest elephants.

"Elephants in these two protected areas in the Congo Basin are facing a threat to their existence," said Zacharie Nzooh, WWF Cameroon representative in the East Region.

Nzooh said that between Feb. 10 and March 1, WWF found the carcasses of 23 elephants, stripped of their tusks, deep in the Nki national park. A further five were found without their tusks in the Lobeke national park, further to the east.

[joeybee12]

1. Sickening...this sucks...knr

[catbyte]

2. I wish they weren't such assholes. Murdering cetaceans, tigers, pandas, elephants, rhinos, and other

creatures shows just how arrogant and uncaring they can be. It truly does suck. Humans suck.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. A way to stop the elephant killing would be to flood the tusk market w realistic plastic tusks.

Is this impossible and/or impractical?

If there are people who can create forgeries of paintings and other art works, and if saving the elephants is important, ways could be found to create forgery-type tusks.

How many forgeries are in the Louvre? A Google search can produce some interesting answers.

If the experts of the Louvre can't eliminate all forgeries, many tusk dealers would not be able to eliminate all well-forged tusks.

[closeupready]

4. It will not stop, sadly.

Everywhere humans spread and succeed, megafauna are extinguished, sooner or later. Hopefully not, though. K&R

[logosoco]

5. This is where an aggressive drone program would do some good.

Perhaps that sounds harsh, but this stuff is sick. There is no need for humans anywhere to kill animals for "trinkets" or "potions".

[xchrom]

6. Du rec. Nt

[Flaxbee]

7. Until we decide it is imperative we provide EVERY human with a basic, decent level of subsistence

-- every single person on this planet, not just Americans - and so long as we force people to do horrible things to survive, our very planet is in peril. The animals, the flora, the ecosystems -- everything will be used and abused and destroyed so long as people are hungry.

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. That's bullshit

This is happening because people are getting richer, not poorer.

[Flaxbee]

10. no, it's not bullshit. The disparity between the wealth in Asia

- those who are asking for ivory and shark fin soup and other fucked up shit like that - drives poachers who have nothing, or very little, to do this as way to make money to survive.

If there was not such vast inequality across the globe, there would not be such a drive to sell precious resources - flora an fauna - to survive.

Or, maybe I am full of shit, and people are just greedy, worthless masses of protoplasm who can never be satisfied with enough stuff.

In which case, the sooner we self destruct, the better. Hopefully without taking the rest of the planet with us.

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!