Photo courtesy of www.africancenter.eu
By: Jessica Austin
Recently, many situations have begun to arise concerning elephant poaching. In countries where wildlife management authorities are chronically under-funded, poaching still appears although there have been efforts to have it banned.
Elephant ivory has become highly sought because of its particular texture, softness and its lack of a tough outer coating of enamel. Africa will lose one-fifth of its elephants in the next decade if the continents poaching crisis is not stopped.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were 10 million elephants in Africa, but the number has fallen to half a million due to poaching and habitat loss. In 2012, 22,000 elephants were killed and at this rate of killing compared to natural population growth,many conservationist fear the largest animal on Earth could soon become extinct.
Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species also believes someday elephants could become extinct. “Currently, elephant poaching in Africa remains far too high, and could soon lead to local extinctions if the present killing rates continue,” said Scanlon.
As many as 20 percent of Africa’s elephants could be killed in the next 10 years if illegal poaching continues at the current rate. In 2012, the elephant killings took place at 42 sights across 27 African Countries.