24,000 elephants killed in 2015

[Lisbeth]

More than 24,000 elephants have died at the hands of poachers since the start of 2015, The Born Free Foundation have reported.

According to Born Free’s monitoring of reports, over 24,300 elephants have been estimated killed since the beginning of this year. Further figures reveal that over 129,000 elephants have been poached for their ivory since the start of 2012.

Born Free Foundation Policy Adviser, Dominic Dyer, said: “Greed, corruption and ignorance is leading to the brutal, cruel destruction of Africa’s elephants and rhinos at a rate not witnessed in the history of human civilisation. Unless the international community takes urgent action to shut down the global ivory and rhino horn trade and provides more training, equipment and financial resources to African states to better protect their precious elephants and rhinos from poachers, we will be the last generation to see them in the wild.”

Born Free Foundation and Born Free USA CEO, Adam M. Roberts, said: “Elephants and rhinos are the victims of an illegal wildlife trafficking enterprise that is more organised, militarised, and lucrative than ever before. An estimated 129,000 elephants have died at the hands of poachers since January 2012. As documented in Born Free USA’s groundbreaking reports, Ivory’s Curse and Out of Africa, poaching is not only a wildlife conservation and animal welfare issue, but also is intrinsically linked to terrorist networks and global criminal syndicates that use bloody ivory money to fund their violent activities, threatening national security.”

“Rhinos are similarly suffering as casualties of the disturbingly high global demand for their horns. More than 1,200 black and white rhinos were killed in South Africa alone in 2014. Africa’s black rhinos in particular are critically endangered, with a population of fewer than 5,000. Only 3,000 one-horned rhinos remain in India and Nepal, and Southeast Asia’s Sumatran and Javan rhinos number only in the hundreds and tens, respectively.”

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/do/ecco.py ... &live=0#cr

[Flutterby]

Too terrible!

[nan]

24000

[Richprins]

A shocking indictment of the continent.