Elephant why hunted

The results can be devastating: As Gail Potgieter, a carnivore conservationist based in Botswana, writes in an editorial for local news outlet the Patriot , elephants roaming the country have killed 36 people over the past two years. Potgieter says that many local farmers have lost their annual harvest in the span of just a few nights. At least the communities should be able to benefit by letting a hunter come in and pay to do it. Expanding on this sentiment, Verreynne points out that rural villages rarely benefit from income generated by safari tourism, but instead bear the highest costs of human-elephant conflict.

Dan Ashe, former head of the U. According to the World Wildlife Foundation , agriculture and land development have driven African elephants into an increasingly smaller area over the past several decades. Crucially, a survey of experts based in 11 African countries placed poaching at the top of concerning threats to wildlife.

Trophy hunting, on the other hand, finished next to last. Although the U. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to lift the ban on imported elephant trophies in , the organization soon decided to shift to a case-by-case assessment model.

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See More. Since deploying thermal camera systems in Kenya in , the WWF says more than poachers have been arrested. And while the anti-poaching effort may be well resourced, so are the poachers.

For some conservators, that is the real problem. He says that tackling poachers alone is not enough. These are the people who organise the transport of wildlife contraband, like ivory, rhino horn or pangolin scales, from countries of origin to countries of demand. They also often set up the sale of such items to buyers. Crosta works with teams around the world to find out who the traffickers are and to whom they are connected.

His colleagues often have to do this work undercover. A wanted alleged trafficker was arrested in Thailand in December, partly thanks to months of work by EAL teams. But the work to gather intelligence on people like this is often very dangerous. In some countries, EAL operatives work without the knowledge of state authorities, because there is a risk that someone in government may be corrupt and inclined to pass such information on to criminal gangs involved in poaching and trafficking.

But Crosta is convinced the effort and risks taken are worth it. Importantly, China recently banned its domestic legal ivory trade — a landmark policy shift that has caused a drop in ivory prices.