Poachers feed China trade, threaten country’s elephants

Following a tip-off by villagers in early May, U Sai Nyi Nyi rushed to the forest in Kyauk Gyi village in Thabeikkyin township of Mandalay Region and found the remains of a dead female elephant. Her tusks and trunk had been cut off and her skin peeled off the right side of her body.

Elephant poachers hastily left when the villagers arrived. Such activity has become common in Thabeikkyin, where poachers in groups of five or more, impersonating wood cutters and armed with guns, enter the forest in search of prey.

“They usually stay in the jungle for many days,” U Sai Nyi Nyi, a member of the township wildlife conservation team, said. Her group has been raising awareness among villagers near the forest to help them protect wildlife from poachers.

He said the poachers first drive the elephants into a desired location and then shoot them with poisoned arrows or guns. Then they follow the wounded elephant till it falls dead, which may take two or more days.

The elephants, sensing danger, go near the villages, as poachers tend to avoid shooting them near populated areas. Wild elephants sometimes enter the fields near the villages apparently to seek refuge, U Sai Nyi Nyi said.

Demand for elephant skin has rapidly risen since last year, according to a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Myanmar. Many Chinese still believe that elephant skin can cure skin diseases and gastritis. It is also used in making jewellery. The increasing demand from China for elephant parts has led to the killing of more elephants in Myanmar.

“Elephant trunk is also said to be medicinal and has become a target,” Daw Sapai Min, WWF Myanmar project manager, said.

The demand for skin has endangered not only male tusked elephants but also females and their young.

“There is no scientific proof that it cures these diseases,” WWF Myanmar Senior Conservation Biologist U Paing Soe said.


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Online elephant skin trade fuels slaughter in Myanmar

Customers inspecting a chunk of dried elephant skin and an ivory tusk at a traditional medicine shop in Mon State, Myanmar.

An emerging online market for elephant skin in China is threatening the survival of the animals in neighbouring Myanmar as poaching intensifies to meet demand, conservationists warned yesterday.

Myanmar has watched with alarm as the number of slain elephants found in the country's forests rises each year, with many blaming the trade in the mammal's hide.

The biggest market for the products is in China, where the tough skin is ground up and used to treat stomach or human skin ailments, or sold as jewellery in the form of blood-red beads and pendants.

The items are increasingly advertised and sold on the Internet, according to the British-based charity Elephant Family.



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