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Tag: poaching

  • Elephants are Acute Listeners of Human Voices

    The 1967 Disney classic, The Jungle Book, provided the American populace (and unfortunately the Republican party) with one of our most favorite adages: “An elephant never forgets.” Despite championing this particular phrase multiple times throughout the movie, the writers also consistently mock the quotation, turning the elephants into cantankerous old fools. If only the writers knew how correct they were in their initial assessment.

    A new study released by scientists at the University of Sussex in England does indeed support the popular adage. Study author Karen McComb and fellow scientists traveled to Amboseli National Park in Kenya, where hundreds of elephants live alongside human populations, in order to study whether or not elephants have a discerning ear for human voices. The results were overwhelmingly yes.

    In order to test said hypothesis, McComb and researchers recorded two different Kenyan tribes saying the phrase, “”Look over there. A group of elephants is coming.” The two tribes were the Maasai and Kamba. The Maasai are a nomadic tribe who often come into contact with elephants and compete with the animals for resources such as water and grazing lands. On the other hand, the Kamba are a farming tribe who rarely come into contact with the elephants.

    When the elephants heard the recordings of the Maasai men, they reacted defensively in a two to one margin. The adult elephants would gather closer together to protect the calves and would raise their trunks in the air to smell for potential danger. When the elephants heard the recordings of the Kamba men, however, almost no threat response was recorded.

    “We knew elephants could distinguish the Maasai and Kamba by their clothes and smells, but that they can also do so by their voices alone is really interesting,” stated Fritz Vollrath, a zoologist at the University of Oxford.

    “They’re using vocal information from another species – us – and they’re using that to discern threat. That takes really advanced cognitive abilities. … These are subtle differences these elephants are attending to,” study co-author Graeme Shannon reported.

    In order to test the validity of the experiment, the scientists decided to expose the elephants to voices of Maasai and Kamba women and young boys as well. For all of the non adult and male recordings, the elephants had virtually no defensive response.

    The scientists even attempted to trick the elephants by digitally distorting the female voices to make them more masculine and the male voices to turn them more feminine. While the researchers thought their antics clever, the elephants were not deceived.

    “It’s not so much that they can tell male from female voices, but that they tell the two languages apart and are not fooled by digital manipulation of the voice, which suggests that they use different gender cues than we do — or probably do,” says Frans de Waal, an animal behaviorist at Emory University.

    The scientists attribute the ability to distinguish between threatening and non-threatening human voices to an elephant’s excellent memory. Some elephants can live up to 60 years. This, in combination with the fact that elephants have a massive, 10.5 pound brain, helps an elephant remember more things than most other mammals. This fantastic memory is most likely an evolutionary adaptation which “comes from desert-adapted elephants, where the matriarchs remember where reliable water can be found and are able to guide their herds to water over very long distances, and over the span of many years. This is a pretty clear indication that elephants have a great ability to remember details about their spatial environment for a very long time.”

    The study conducted by the scientists at Amboseli National Park corroborates the adage that “An elephant never forgets.” Elephant families led by a matriarch of 42 years or older never fled when hearing the voice of a Maasai boy, but 40 percent of elephant families led by matriarchs younger than 42 years old did flee at the sound of a non-threatening figure. “Even though spearings by Maasai have declined in recent years, it’s still obvious that fear of them is high. This is likely down to younger elephants following the lead of their matriarchs who remember spearings from long ago,” states McComb.

    Moral of the story: Don’t piss an elephant off. It will remember all your distinguishing characteristics.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Rhino Hunt Permit A Controversial Poaching Solution

    Rhino Hunt Permit A Controversial Poaching Solution

    The effort to save endangered species from poachers seems to have taken a bizarre turn where the black rhino is concerned. The Dallas Safari Club is reportedly planning to auction a permit for hunting a black rhino in Namibia. The hunt would allow for the killing of a lone post-breeding bull.

    Club executive director Ben Carter says that the move to auction such a permit is in fact meant to help the endangered rhino species.

    “These bulls no longer contribute to the growth of the population and are in a lot of ways detrimental to the growth of the population because black rhinos are very aggressive and territorial. In many cases, they will kill younger, non-breeding bulls and have been known to kill calves and cows.”

    He also says that allowing the hunt permit to be sold will raise money that could help ensure the survival of the black rhino species. The hunting club hopes the auctioned ticket will fetch as much as $1,000,000 to be put towards the preservation of the animal.

    Despite the intentions of the Dallas Safari Club, certain animal rights groups take issue with the method in which the preservation money is earned. For instance, Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, says his organization opposes any form of hunting of animals regardless of the reasons.

    “Killing an animal as a head-hunting exercise is archaic and inhumane. We can’t just cherry-pick the perfect set of facts to justify this gambit.”

    There are also reports of death threats from animal rights activists over the hunt, causing the Dallas Safari Club to contact the FBI to investigate.

    Namibia has been successful at preserving the country’s tiny population of black rhino through controlled hunting and conservation efforts.

    There hadn’t been much trouble for the black rhino until about 2010, when a Vietnamese official’s relative was said to have been cured of cancer by a medicine that featured the horn of the animal. Despite a lack of medical evidence to substantiate the claim, poaching of the animal skyrocketed.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • South African Abalone Poaching Kingpin Sentenced

    A South African court sentenced a regional abalone poaching kingpin to two years in prison on Friday, after he pleaded guilty to smuggling 3,243 of the gastropod mollusks, which are a pricey delicacy in parts of Asia.

    Peter Jansen of Cape Town appeared alongside 20 other defendants, who faced a collective 530 charges, including racketeering, corruption and illegal possession of abalone, comprising the largest abalone poaching takedown in South African history. Chinese national Ran Wei, the alleged mastermind behind the whole operation, fled from South Africa, but was still charged in absentia.

    Abalone, also called venus’s-ears in South Africa, is a common name for any of a group of small to huge edible sea snails of the family Haliotidae. Other common names are perlemoen, ear shells, sea ears, muttonfish, muttonshells, ormer and pāua, depending on what part of the world one might be poaching them from.

    Abalones have been identified as being threatened with extinction, due to overfishing and acidification of oceans from anthropogenic carbon dioxide. Some predict that abalone will become extinct in the wild within 200 years at present rates of carbon dioxide production, as the reduced seawater pH erodes their shells.

    World Wide Fund’s marine program manager Eleanor Yeld Hutchings called the abalone industry an extreme instance of a fishery with high levels of illegal, unregulated and unreported catch. The illegal harvest in South Africa in 2008 was roughly 860 tons, more than 10 times the legal TAC (total allowable catch) of 85 tons. It’s believed that comparable totals have been caught since.

    Yeld Hutchings commented, “If poaching continues at its current level, and the TAC remains stable for the legal commercial catch, abalone could reach commercial extinction by 2030.”

    Jansen admitted to hiring the car that moved the 3,243 shucked abalone, worth roughly $30,200, to Johannesburg for transport. His guilty plea statement explained, “The seized abalone was clearly not for own consumption but for commercial purposes of exporting and selling.”

    Biodiverse South Africa, home to most of the rhinoceri on that continent, is also having a poaching problem on that front. Some say that the present rate of horn harvesting could render the species extinct in the wild within a decade. Rhino horns, which are highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, can go for up to $30,000 a kilo on the black market.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Kenya Seizes Ivory, Cuts Off Terrorist Funding

    Kenyan customs officers in Mombasa have seized almost four tons of elephant ivory in two separate shipments Wednesday, amid a spike in poaching of the animals. The illicit ivory trade on the black market has been discovered to help fund terrorism.

    Kenya Revenue Authority official Fatma Yusuf said that one cache of ivory weighing roughly 4,200 pounds was found Friday, under a bag of sesame seeds in the port city of Mombasa, on the Indian Ocean. On Tuesday, another 4,400 pounds was found disguised in a similar manner. Both stockpiles were scheduled to be shipped to Turkey.

    Ivory poaching has been on the rise – Zimbabwean poachers recently poisoned 87 elephants with cyanide in Hwange national park, which holds one of the world’s largest herds. Zimbabwean environment minister Saviour Kasukuwere said that park rangers and police have recovered 19 tusks, cyanide and wire snares, while searching villages close to the park.

    The Kenyan seizures are indicative of the poaching of several, if not hundreds, of elephants. Also found in the Mombasa raid was 1,000 pounds of pangolin scales. Pangolins are anteaters and the only mammal known to be covered in armor made of keratin. The scales are used in Chinese traditional medicine, similar to the way rhinoceros horns are used, and as fashion accessories in Asia.

    Kenya Wildlife Service director Arthur Tudor said searches at Mombasa were being increased in a bid to stop smugglers. “We want to ensure that our port is not used as a transit point of ivory,” he said, adding, “We have to step up the war on poachers to completely wipe out the ivory trade – it is threatening elephant populations in the country and entire region.”

    Ivory trade is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Black market ivory generates up to $10 billion a year, and is mostly fostered by clients in Asia and the Middle East. It’s also been suggested that poaching has helped to fund the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Camera Traps Capture Elusive Sumatran Rhino

    The World Wildlife Fund announced earlier today that an elusive Sumatran rhinoceros has been caught on camera in the jungles of East Kalimantan, a province of Indonesia. The Borneo subspecies was thought to be extinct in the area, and the WWF-Indonesia states, “the team is delighted to have secured the first known visual evidence of the Sumatran rhino in Kalimantan.”

    Sumatran rhinos are critically endangered, with only six populations existing in the wild – four in Sumatra, one in Borneo, and one in the Malay Peninsula. They’re difficult to count, because they’re a solitary species and are scattered across a wide range, but their numbers are estimated to be less than 275. The decline of the Sumatran rhinoceros is due primarily to poaching for their horns, which go for up to $30,000 a kilo on the black market. The horns are greatly valued in Chinese traditional medicine.

    Wildlife conservation teams first found rhino-esque footprints while trekking through the jungle to survey orangutan populations in East Kalimantan. This prompted WWF-Indonesia officials to install sixteen camera traps in the West Kutai district. After three months, the officials got their first footage of a two-horned rhino. The animal can be seen wallowing in the mud in the video above.

    At the Asian Rhino Range States Ministerial Meeting on Wednesday, in Bandar Lampung, Sumatra, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said, “this physical evidence is very important, as it forms the basis to develop and implement more comprehensive conservation efforts for the Indonesian rhinoceros. This finding represents the hard work of many parties, and will hopefully contribute to achieving Indonesia’s target of 3 percent annual rhino population growth.”

    WWF-Indonesia conservation director Nazir Foead added, “WWF calls on all parties, in Indonesia and around the world, to immediately join the efforts to conserve the Indonesian rhinoceros.”.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Vietnam WWF: Country Ranks the Worst for Rhino Poaching

    Vietnam, according to the WWF, ranks among the worst countries in Asia when it comes to protecting endangered species. The World Wildlife Federation, which is based out of Switzerland, has found that the country is a hot-spot destination for those looking to sell rhino horns trafficked from South Africa. 448 rhinos were killed in 2011 alone, with an additional 262 already murdered this year. Several Vietnamese have been arrested for their crimes, including a handful of diplomats. Sadly, it doesn’t appear this trend will end anytime soon.

    “It is time for Vietnam to face the fact that its illegal consumption of rhino horn is driving the widespread poaching of endangered rhinos in Africa, and that it must crack down on the illegal rhino horn trade. Vietnam should review its penalties and immediately curtail retail markets, including Internet advertising for horn,” explained Elisabeth McLellan, Global Species Programm manager at WWF.

    The WWF released a report detailing 23 countries thought to be heavily involved in the illegal trade of endangered animals. According to the Brookings Institute, which is based out of Washington D.C., such practices are thought to bring in between $8 billion and $10 billion per year throughout Southeast Asia. With that much money tied into the black market, getting countries to crack down on such practices will be harder than most realize.

    Of course, Vietnam isn’t the only country in the region guilty of not cracking down on people who make a living from butchering endangered animals. China came in at a close second, with Thailand trailing not too far behind.

    “In Thailand, illegal African ivory is being openly sold in up-scale boutiques that cater to unsuspecting tourists. Governments will be taking up this troubling issue this week,” McLellan said. “So far Thailand has not responded adequately to concerns and, with the amount of ivory of uncertain origin in circulation, the only credible option at this stage is a ban on ivory trade.”

    There is a bit of a silver lining to this depressing story. Both India and Nepal received positive marks from the WWF, the latter of which celebrated an entire year without a reported case of rhino poaching. The country attributes this accomplishment to a new wave of anti-poaching laws.