China Claims They Have Banned Ivory, But News That Just Leaked Is Very Upsetting

Considering the effects of the ivory bans, have elephants really been spared?

With huge tusks that got to the ground, Satao was head and shoulders above the others in is herd. The beast, which is considered one of the last great “tuskers” and is estimated to be about half a century old, was hailed as the biggest, oldest and arguably most iconic elephant in all of Kenya.

In his prime, tourists from all over the world would come in to see Satao. Sadly though, not even his celebrity status- as well as the added security that is got him- could save the most beloved elephant. He was found dead on the 30th of May 2014, and he was apparently a victim of poaching. His face was hacked off, and his ivory was gone.

Satao is just a single victim of the awful ivory trade that is decimating the elephant population of Africa. Currently, the ivory trade is costing the continent about 20 to 30 thousand elephants on a yearly basis. The population of elephants on the continent is about 415, 000; a decline of well over 100,000 in the past decade.

Sadly, this isn’t all the bad news.

On the 31st of December 2017, the elephant ivory trade in China was ground to a standstill. The country is seen as the largest consumer of ivory in the world.

This move is in accordance with the announcement of Former US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both leaders committed to enact “almost complete” bans of ivory in their respective countries.

That of America came to effect in June 2016.

In November of 2017, the Trump Administration announced that the ban on importing elephant ivories from Zambia and Zimbabwe would be lifted, but the decision was eventually put on hold after a series of backlash.

Craig Millar, head of Security and Field Operations at the Big Life Foundation, said, “The rate of poaching hasn’t dropped since China’s ban on ivory, but prices of ivory have”

“The rate of poaching has been steadily declining in Kenya for the past three to four years, and it is hoped that the trend would continue”

Millar also added that this drop in prices is actually a good thing.

“As soon as the announcement was made, we witnessed the price of ivory drop by as much as 50 to 60 percent. This just means that the poacher on the ground here is getting much less than anyone else who is on the supply chain, so there’s even less of an incentive for him to keep on risking his life.

Apart from being faced with some brutal scenes, Millar and his colleagues place their lives in danger to protect the animal at Big Life. The foundation manages an area just over 2 million acres.

The biggest impact of this ivory ban, however, has been on the animals themselves. Millar says that Big Life’s elephant hides his tusks from humans by shoving his head into a bush.

“The animals are actually very clever. I’ve seen quite a few changes in the animals that we can attribute to poaching. The behaviors change drastically depending on the environment that they’re in. They know where they’re safe, and they’ll be more relaxed. If they feel threatened, they get nervous and unsettled”

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Excessive Poaching May Be Causing African Elephants To Evolve Without Tusks

While elephants born without tusks are not unheard of, they normally comprise just 2 to 6 percent of the herd population. However, that is not the case at Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, where an astounding 33 percent of female elephants born after the country’s civil war ended in 1992, are tuskless. While that may appear to be just a coincidence, Joyce Poole, an elephant behavior expert and National Geographic Explorer, has another theory. The researcher thinks we may be witnessing an unnaturally induced evolution of the species due to the incessant poaching of the mammals for their valuable tusks.

Tusks are overgrown upper incisors which protrude from sockets in the elephant’s skull. Unlike our permanent teeth, they continue to grow throughout the animal’s life, becoming longer and thicker with age. While humans covet them for ornamental purposes, the teeth are an essential survival tool for elephants. The mammals use tusks for a variety of tasks including, extracting tree bark, digging for water or roots and, in the case of males, even fighting with one another. While poachers usually first target older males due to their impressive tusks, females are not spared either. As a result, in areas where poaching goes unchecked for extensive periods of time, the proportion of tuskless females increases. This allows them to gain a biological advantage, resulting in a larger than average population of female offspring with no tusks.

Poole, who also serves as scientific director of nonprofit ElephantVoices, believes this phenomenon explains the unprecedented rise in the number of tuskless females at Gorongosa National Park. The researcher, who has been studying the wildlife sanctuary’s elephant population for many years, says prior to the country’s 15-year-long civil war, the 100,000 acre-park was home to over 4,000 pachyderms. However, by the time the conflict ended in 1992, about 90 percent of the mammals had been slaughtered for ivory to help finance weapons and meat to feed the soldiers. Of the less than 200 survivors, over 50 percent of the females – 25 years or older – had no tusks. Hence, it is not surprising that the park’s tuskless elephant population has grown substantially.

This is not the first time researchers have observed a drastic change in the population of elephant herds who have suffered severe poaching losses. At the Ruaha National Park in Tanzania, an area which was heavily poached in the 1970s and 1980s, 35% of elephants 25 years or older and 13% of those younger than 25 are now without tusks. A 2008 study published in the African Journal of Ecology found that the number of tuskless females at Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park and adjacent Lupande Game Management Area went from 10.5 percent in 1969 to almost 40 percent in 1989, largely due to illegal hunting for ivory.

Thus far, the genetic consequence of poaching has largely impacted female elephants. Poole explains, “Because males require tusks for fighting, tusklessness has been selected against in males, and very few males are tuskless. For African elephants, tuskless males have a much harder time breeding and do not pass on their genes as often as tusked males.”

However, if the slaughtering of males with the most impressive tusks continues at this pace, it could result in a generation of elephants with much smaller tusks. Poole says, “Assuming that poachers select according to tusk size, they will tend to kill older males with very large tusks, thereby taking out of the population of breeding-aged males who also happen to have very big tusks. Those males then no longer pass on their genes for large tusks. In this manner, heavy poaching will select out genes for large tusks.”

The recent ban on ivory in both the US and China should help eliminate, or at least reduce, elephant poaching. However, scientists are not sure how long it will take for the herds with a higher rate of tuskless females, to reverse the trend.

The only silver lining is that the tuskless elephants look healthy, indicating they have learned to adapt without their all-important “tools.” To investigate how the pachyderms are able to thrive without tusks, a team led by University of Idaho researcher Ryan Long recently fitted six adult females, three with tusks and three without, with GPS tracking devices. The researchers plan to monitor the animals for a few years to document the tuskless mammals’ modified lifestyle and assess its impact on the surrounding environment.

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Outdoors: Elephants need a certain heavy protection

One of the most unpopular practices going on in today’s outdoors is elephant-poaching. That is, illegally killing elephants for the ivory in their tusks.

Nothing disgusts an observer more than a picture of multiple dead elephants killed for this purpose, or a shot of a baby standing mournfully before its mother’s carcass.

As reported here many times, the world is responding to this tragedy in many ways.

New laws in China restrict tusk trade as well as Canada, and, of course, the United States whose confiscatory practices are almost overly zealous.

Other examples of global activity include Britain,which will introduce one of the world’s strictest ivory sales bans. The new law, announced April 3, includes only narrow exceptions, and violators will face as many as five years in jail or an unlimited fine. Conservationists hope the move will prompt the European Union to pass a regionwide ban at a time when some 30,000 African elephants are being killed by poachers each year.

Meanwhile, Tanzania, since our last report, has taken further steps to protect its dwindling elephant population. The East African nation has been hit hard by elephant poaching, losing 90 percent of elephants (from 110,000 to 15,200) in its Selous Game Reserve during the past 40 years. Now the government has launched a project to monitor 60 elephants in the reserve (roughly, the size of Switzerland) with GPS collars across 12 months.

The aim is to gather data that will help protect and grow elephant numbers.

Even Central Africa’s Chad’s elephant population has dramatically rebounded. During a civil war (2005-2010), poachers took advantage of lawlessness to slaughter 90 percent of the elephants in Zakouma National Park.

Beginning in 2011, a team of conservationists turned Zakouma into a haven for elephants. Today, the park’s herd of more than 500 pachyderms is one of the largest in Central Africa.

That’s the good news. But, like any other serious issue, there’s another side. It needs to be understood, or at least appreciated. To advance a title for this problem, call it “Elephants — best extant or extinct.”

Elephants fall into two broad species: the large African bush variety and the smaller Asian species. The African seems to be under the most pressure today for whatever reason. Through the ages, the African has been used by travelers and warriors; the Asian for commercial drudgery.

This mighty beast is a marvel of nature, not just for its size, but the utility of its probiscus (trunk). It ranges from the strength to lift heavy objects like trees, to detail work with the little nipple at its end. Hannibal’s warriors taught it to remove barbed arrowheads and, modernly, it can extract errant fish hooks. So, its preservation should be a given. Is it though?

Where does the elephant fit? Not in circuses or zoos certainly, so say the animal rights proponents, with some justification. Their planned salvation to date has been on preserves, but to what purpose is that, but only to keep them alive. Modern machinery has rendered them obsolete commercially.

Left to the wild, they remain vulnerable to a poacher who reasons a pair of tusks brings him more income in one night than otherwise working a year in Tanzania — particularly, when his crops and village have been destroyed by a rogue, or, just a browsing herd.

Do we, then, allow the elephant to depart the planet, along with the white rhino that faces similar circumstances owing to the quest for its horn? Before one cringes at this solution, remember that the elephant and rhino’s earliest species similarities — the wooly mammoth and triceratops — preceded them to oblivion.

A solution for this? One way to handle this problem is to give threatened species inalienable rights.

In Slovakia, they’ve passed new legislation that defines all animals as living creatures, not things. The law, an amendment to a veterinary care bill, includes mandatory “chipping” of dogs as well as measures against illegal dog breeders and animal abuse. This is considered a historic step towards improving the status of animals. Or an extreme case of the tail wagging the dog.

Slovakia is just half of what was Czechoslovakia. My brother, who lives in the other part — the Czech Republic (Prague) — has not mentioned a like law there.

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Chasing Ivory Out of Business

Amidst many political issues that have had Westminster in contortions, a move to ban all ivory products has been proposed by the British government. Headed by Prince William, a block on the ivory trade coming to the United Kingdom is being considered by the government. On October 6, Environment Secretary Michael Gove announced plans for the UK to impose a ban on sales of the material in a bid to halt the poaching of elephants. The initial plans that have been put forward will be subject to a 12-week consultation ending in December.

The seriousness of the issue is learned in the number of elephants left in existence. Now just 20,000, the population has decreased by a third, in the last decade alone. Gove asserted: “The decline in the elephant population fuelled by poaching for ivory shames our generation. The need for radical and robust action to protect one of the world’s most iconic and treasured species is beyond dispute.” This message from the UK is important: Britain is currently the largest exporter of legal ivory in the world, namely to Hong Kong and China.

There are four exemptions to this incoming ban: musical instruments, items containing a small percentage of ivory, important historical, cultural, and artistic items, and sales to and betweens museums. The Musicians’ Union, Music Industries’ Association and the Association of British Orchestras’ applauded the exemption of instruments from the ban. Despite ivory not being used in instruments since 1989, various older instruments do contain it, including some of the most prized musical instruments throughout history.

Curbing demand?

Things have progressed faster on the other side of the pond. In June 2016, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published their final revising of the rule under section 4(d) pertaining to African elephants. The new regulation, which constituted an almost total ban of the commercial trade of ivory, came into play already the following month. But the main problem remains with other markets.

By far the largest consumer of ivory products is China. The market is driven by the Chinese middle class who see ivory items as symbols of wealth and status. The country is known to have the largest illegal ivory trade in the world according to a report by Cites. In 2015, after being pressured by campaign groups the government has crushed up to 6.2 tons of seized illegal ivory in an effort to slow down the market. The Minister of the State Forestry Administration Zhao Shucong said at a Beijing event, “we will strictly control ivory processing and trade until the commercial processing and sale of ivory and its products are eventually halted.” But out of all the nations trying to put an end to the business of ivory, internationally China is met with the most scepticism with regards to its commitment.

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Chinese Firm to Build US $40 Million Elephant Conservation, Breeding Center in Laos

A Chinese state-owned enterprise said on Saturday that it will build a U.S. $40 million elephant conservation and breeding center in northwestern Laos’ Sayaboury province and develop it into a for-profit tourist attraction by the end of the year.

At a celebration of the first World Elephant Day in the province on Aug. 12, the Sino-Lao Tourism Investment and Development Company Ltd., announced its plans to build the center in Sayaboury city for a species that has become increasingly scarce in the Southeast Asian country.

Company manager Mu Yian Yu told attendees through an interpreter that the company will invest $40 million in building the conservation center during the upcoming dry weather season which begins after October.

“The Sino-Lao Tourism Investment and Development Company will develop the center this year,” he said, adding that provincial officials have granted the firm a 50-year land concession for the center.

“In two years we will have boats, hot air balloons, and elephant shows,” he said.

A Sayaboury official, who requested anonymity, said the Chinese firm is building the elephant center as a tourist attraction.

“They are developing a tourist attraction in Sayaboury about two kilometers (1.2 miles) from here,” he said.

“It will be a big business,” he said. “The Chinese investor has already done some publicity. It’s all business nowadays. They are doing it for profit. Now they are spending U.S. $900 to feed a single elephant each month.”

The company rented about 50 elephants from Sayaboury residents for an event that attracted about 500 people to mark World Elephant Day, which was established on Aug. 12, 2012, to call attention to the plight of Asian and African elephants at risk because of illegal poaching, habitat loss, human-elephant conflict, and mistreatment in captivity.

“Every year we will mark this day and organize some activities to call on people to protect elephants and their habitat,” Mu Yian Yu said at the ceremony.

A Sayaboury resident who attended the event said he believes the Chinese are building the center in order to protect elephants in Laos and not to export them back home.

“The Chinese are doing business in our country,” said the Sayaboury resident who declined to be named. “Their purpose is to convince people to protect the elephants. These are all Lao elephants. I believe they will not sell these animals to China. They have a conservation center that can train them.”

Officials of Sayaboury province and the Chinese company estimate that there are about 850 elephants in Laos, half of which are domesticated elephants. In Sayaboury province alone, there are 250 domesticated elephants and 150 wild ones.

Not to everyone’s liking

Not everyone is a fan of wildlife conservations centers like the one the Chinese will build in Laos.

Edwin Wiek, founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, told RFA’s Lao Service that wildlife conservation efforts need to be backed by law enforcement to be effective at increasing animal populations.

“I never agree with the breeding programs for domestic elephants,” he said. “For instance, in Thailand … the population of elephants always increases because of real conservation [efforts] and enforcement of the law.”

Though Laos does have such a law, poachers continue to kill elephants for their tusks and hides, which they sell illegally, mainly to China.

“We have the law, but we do not implement it,” he said “It is not because of the law but the problem is that it is not enforced.”

“Lao is now considered a global market for wildlife,” he said, adding that the trafficking of wildlife has been increasing in the country.

Wiek said if there is no further deforestation and elephant hunting in Southeast Asia, future elephant populations might increase because of areas along the Thailand-Myanmar border where elephants can roam freely and breed naturally.

“To talk about elephant conservation, we must make laws to protect against deforestation and the illegal ivory trade,” he said.

Furthermore, Wiek questioned the motives behind centers that breed elephants in captivity.

“In fact someone may think that breeding elephants to have many calves is called conservation. That does not increase the number of elephants in the forest, but rather it is only breeding for business.”

Laos became a member of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a multilateral treaty protecting endangered plants and animals, in May 2004. The convention banned the ivory trade in 1989.

Though deforestation, particularly from illegal logging, is the main reason for the declining elephant population in Laos, pachyderms are also hunted and killed by poachers who smuggle their ivory tusks and hides outside the country.

Lao officials are known for the lax implementation and enforcement of laws prohibiting illegal logging and the smuggling of illegal wildlife, and border officials can easily be bribed to look the other way, experts say.

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Conservationists Call for Enforcement Powers to Crack Down on Ivory Gangs

LONDON — Global delegates and campaigners are gathering in Geneva this week for a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES. The trade in ivory is high on the agenda as poaching continues to hit elephant populations across parts of Africa. Campaigners want tougher enforcement of regulations to tackle organized criminal gangs behind the trade.

The United Nations estimates the illegal wildlife trade is worth $23 billion per year, with much of that value coming from ivory.

Asia, and especially China, is by far the biggest market.

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency spent three years infiltrating one of the major smuggling syndicates shipping ivory from east African ports. Investigators identified the southern Chinese town of Shuidong as the major hub for poached ivory, they say 80 percent of ivory destined for China passes through the town.

“[Shuidong] has emerged as probably the biggest hub in the world for the illegal trade of ivory tusks. We first came across the footprints of this group in Tanzania in 2014. The country has lost half its elephants in five years, the biggest loss in Africa,” said Julian Newman, the agency’s campaign director.

As Tanzania began to clamp down on smuggling, the gangs moved to Mozambique. Investigators secretly recorded one of the traffickers, named as "Xie", describing the trade through the Mozambican port of Pemba.

Xie boasted that he is able to move anything through Pemba. He said all the authorities there have been bought off and the customs clearance agent, the customs also gets a share of the money.

Newman said smugglers are operating with impunity.

“There were a few cases where they had some tusks seized. But they were never arrested. And they saw these seizures as a business expense,” said Newman.

Earlier this month, $10 million-worth of ivory was seized in Hong Kong. China plans to ban the trade by the end of 2017.

But John Sellar, former chief enforcement officer at CITES, told VOA via Skype there is too much focus on the trade and not enough on the criminals involved.

“There is speculation involved here, there is undoubtedly money-laundering to my mind. This is a much more complex issue. Organized criminal networks are now major players in all forms or many forms of wildlife trafficking. And you need to bring an organized law enforcement response to that,” said Sellar.

Without that enforcement, campaigners warn the poaching of ivory will likely continue, until the criminal networks are investigated and broken down.

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China’s elephant ‘canteen’ keeps villagers safe from peckish pachyderms

The facility spans about 66 hectares in a wildlife reserve in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, China National Radio reported.

To make it irresistible to the pachyderms, the area has been stripped of all non-native trees and shrubs and restocked with their favourite food plants. These include such delights as paper mulberry and Nepalese broom grass, the report said.

With such an abundant food supply, the elephants are not the only creatures attracted to the new area. Antelopes and boars have also been seen tucking in to the treats on offer.


Over the past decade, the wild elephant population in Yunnan has doubled to more than 300, according to forestry authorities. As a result there has been increased competition for food and the hungry animals have increasingly gone in search of sustenance in villages and even towns.

Between 1991 and 2016, more than 40 people in Yunnan were killed in elephant attacks, according to official statistics.

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