C'mon. Who doesn’t love elephants? They’re massive! Yet graceful. Wrinkle and gray as all get out! But cute as hell. Plus they're brilliant, loving and mourn for their dead. Pretttty much in our top 5 beasts of all time.
It sure would be a shame if they became extinct. Think we’re feeling sentimental!? Maybe it's our "lady time"?! Think again b*tches.
Despite ongoing bans, ivory poaching is an enormous (dare-we-say elephantine) problem. Conservationists believe that approximately 25,000 of the 500,000 elephants in Africa are killed every year – illegally – for their ivory. But this global crime industry is huge – a 10 billion dollar industry to be exact – so can it be crushed?
More complicated still is that there is a legitimate side of the ivory trade which enables the poachers to flourish:
China continues to allow a legal, licensed trade in ivory. It classifies ivory carving as part of its traditional culture and allows 37 workshops to operate, mainly using a stockpile of ivory it bought in 2008 during a period when elephant numbers were relatively healthy and limited international trade was allowed. – Simon Denyer, Washington Post
Last month (on January 17, for ya OCD lovelies), Kenyan and Chinese operation Cobra II captured and arrested illegal ivory trading kingpin Xue. (Hurray!) Besides having an epic-ly badass name (we couldn’t have named it better ourselves!), this month-long operation saved 2,000 snakes as well as 10,000 European eels and pig-nosed turtles. Not too shabby, Cobra II! Unfortunately, they were too late for other animals: three tons of ivory, 36 rhino horns and over 1,000 hides from snakes, leopards and tigers were recovered.
This capture did bring about some well-deserved and needed publicity however. Because ivory is legal in China – but often sold and imported illegally – China publicly crushed more than six tons of tusks and carved ornaments to send a message loud and clear. We imagine it went something like this: “f*ck poachers and money – we wanna help save these animals!”
Now, because China is the biggest importer of illegal ivory, when they sent this message, word got around. Among the eager ears in the audience were Wales’s own Princes William and Charles. Royal Father and son created a YouTube video (watch that touching sh*t below!) declaring their intolerance for the matter. In doing so, they want to unite the world. In fact, they ended the vid by saying, “let’s unite for wildlife,” in Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Swahili and Vietnamese.
Alright America, hop on board. Let’s get on the anti-ivory bandwagon! It's quite a ride.
Image: http://images4.fanpop.com/image/polls/810000/810077_1313792354427_full.jpg
