Elephant Poaching A Crisis

Dr Kate Evans runs Elephants for Africa an organisation she founded back in 2007. Her interests in these magnificent animals started when she began researching adolescent male elephants in the Okavango Delta nearly a decade ago.

“Elephants have always been my passion, and growing up the poaching crisis of the 1970s and 80s had a massive impact on the journey that my life would take. Since 2002 I have been studying the elephants of Botswana, home to the largest remaining population in the world. My particular interest is male elephants and their ecological and social requirements.” Dr Evans said.

After starting the charity to support conservation of elephants in Africa the organization now runs projects in South Africa and Ethiopia.

Dr Evans says she is not surprised by the shocking revelation there is another poaching crisis that is reverberating throughout Africa. Whole elephant herds are being indiscriminately gunned down regardless of whether the animals are adults or calves. Even more sickening is once the ivory is taken, these magnificent animals are simply left to rot in the sun.

The question that needs to be asked is what do these animals think or feel when they stumble across a whole herd of dead elephants, and more importantly what are the consequences for humans.

Researchers in Ethiopia have seen the devastation up close with as many as 66 elephants reported poached over the last few months leaving roughly 150-250 wild elephants in the Babile Elephant sanctuary. The loss not only devastates the elephant population but causes significant problems for the ecology of the area.

The sanctuary is surrounded by a sea of humanity and when the last elephant dies there will be no repopulation which would cause irrevocable change that would affect both people and animals that reside in the area.

Even Botswana which has had much success in the past is no longer the safe haven it used to be with more reports of poaching surfacing every day.

It is not possible to understand the true impact of what a mass extinction of the African elephant will have both on the economy and ecology of Africa, though if nothing is done to stop the illegal trade in ivory this is the stark reality.