Demands from southern African countries to allow international trade in elephant ivory are extremely dangerous. Proponents are trying to create the impression that wild populations are growing to problematic numbers when, in fact, the species remains in decline across the continent and is threatened with long-term extinction. Couched in the language of sustainability, arguments made […]
Tag: elephants
Petition: Video of Elephant Laying Out a Tourist Could’ve Been Worse
As shown in a recent viral video, one tourist learned the hard way that elephants are not ours to use for entertainment—and luckily for her, she walked away with just a bruised ego. The internet got a good laugh at the expense of a woman who received a firm smack from an elephant in Zambia, […]
Lift ‘unfair’ ban on ivory trade, southern African leaders urge summit
Southern African leaders have renewed calls for a lifting of the ban on the ivory trade as debate over the “unfair” embargo escalates. At a wildlife economic summit in Zimbabwe, leaders of the five countries that make up the Kavango-Zambezi conservation area – Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Angola and Namibia – raised the issue ahead of […]
Trophy hunting ‘imperial’ and ‘unsustainable’
A colonial attitude remains pervasive among those who defend the trophy hunting of elephants. They argue that ‘the west’ must stop lecturing Africans about how to manage their elephants. But it was Western hunters who shot elephants out to the point where they had to establish reserves, dispossessing and crowding out local communities in the […]
The appeal acquittal of Feisal Mohamed Ali: A victory for rule of law, a process corrupted, or both?
Could it have come at a worse time for Kenya’s Tourism and Wildlife Ministry? With Kenya still stinging from the humiliation and embarrassment over the translocation-related deaths of 11 rhinos, a Kenyan court declared on August 3 that convicted ivory trafficker Feisal Mohamed Ali was to be set free. Lady Justice Dora Chepkwony ruled that […]
Watching the largest herd of African Elephants in Amboseli National Park
While out on the safari drive in Amboseli National Park, we saw a huge cloud of dust in the distance. As the animals came closer, it became clear that this was probably the largest herd of African Elephants (as seen in the feature image) that we had seen here. It was also a herd with […]
POLL: Should trophy and big game hunting be banned?
Around 1.7m animal “trophies” have been exported across borders by hunters in the last decade, with at least 200,000 of them endangered species, according to a new report. US hunters are by far the largest killers of trophy animals, including half of all the 11,000 lions shot in the last decade, the report found. The […]
