65% Of World's Forest Elephants Killed In Just Twelve Years

[hatrack]

Forest elephants have suffered unprecedented butchery for their ivory tusks over the past decade, according to new numbers released by conservationists today in London. Sixty-five percent of the world's forest elephants have been slaughtered by poachers over the last dozen years, with poachers killing an astounding nine percent of the population annually. Lesser-known than their savannah cousins, a genetics study in 2010 found that forest elephants are in fact a distinct species, as far removed from savannah elephants as Asian elephants are from mammoths. These findings make the forest elephant crisis even more urgent.

"At least a couple of hundred thousand forest elephants were lost between 2002-2013 to the tune of at least sixty a day, or one every twenty minutes, day and night," says Fiona Maisels, a researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who headed the research. "By the time you eat breakfast, another elephant has been slaughtered to produce trinkets for the ivory market."

The analysis adds new data from 2012 and 2013 to a landmark study last year, showing that despite some stepped-up conservation efforts poaching continues apace.

Forest elephants are found primarily in Central and West Africa, largely inhabiting—as its name suggests—the Congo Rainforest. However, this means that it's not only more difficult to monitor populations hidden by great forests, but also that it's easy for poachers to kill them and getaway with immunity. Many of the countries in which they are found are also beset by poverty, instability, and corruption, making forest elephant conservation incredibly challenging.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0212-hance-forest-elephant-poaching.html

[shenmue]

1. Mother of mercy

This has got to be stopped.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Humans are horrible creatures.

[ladjf]

3. The Earth is infested with humans who pollute and kill everything around them.nt

[CFLDem]

4. I hate to be this guy

but how about a graphic warning?

But on the point it is incredibly infuriating that someone could treat any animal like this.

As some other posters have mention we gotta make poacher teeth some sort of hot commodity.