Poaching Elephant Ivory

Richard Bonham remembers the first time he saw the massive elephant that came to be called Torn Ear. It was in the early ’90s, and Torn Ear was at a watering hole in the Kenyan park, Chyulu Hills. Bonham, an East African conservationist, was struck by the size of the animal’s ivory tusks.

“I watched his ivory grow, probably nearly doubling in size from when I first saw him,” he told National Geographic. Soon Torn Ear became “one of the few left on the continent whose tusks passed the 100-pound mark,” Bonham said.

In Augest 2014 Washington Post said that illegal poaching could exterminate the African elephant ‘in 100 years" because of the frequent poach of its ivory.

And in a reliable study of "National Geographic" said that more than 100 thousands elephant have been killed since 2010.

George Wittemyer (the auther of the study) has also said that there's a real disaster, and if it keept on in these current trends, the poaching may lead to the extinction of the African elephant within 100 year, and that is expected.

The researchers pointed out that in 2011 40 thousands elephants been killed by poachers, and that species have declined by 3%.

Wittemyer followed that whree-quarters of the elephants are falling back. However, 25% of them are in stable position or having an increasing, and continued, We we began searching in the ivory trade, the price of a pound in the market was $30, and the number has inreased and became $100 for a pound, and in 2011 (the worst year) the price reached $150, and now some estimates indicate that one pound of ivoet could sold for $1500 in China.

“This is a huge amount of money,” Wittemyer told The Post. “A big male elephant can have 40 kilos [about 90 pounds] per tusk. You’re talking about big time dollars. Even in the U.S., we’d have issues with [poaching], and these elephants are in poor areas. So there’s a lot of pressure.”