Africa: Poaching poses a massive threat to elephants and rhinos
According to experts, poaching remains a major threat to the long-term survival of elephants in Africa. In 2018, more than 500 elephants were killed illegally.
«The illegal killing of African elephants for their ivory remains a significant threat to elephant populations in most countries,» said CITES Secretary-General Ivonne Higuero on Friday in Geneva, following the analysis of new figures.
Studies showed that the number of elephants killed or dying of natural causes in some countries continued to be too high to be offset by births. Last year, 1,235 elephant carcasses were examined across Africa. In 520 cases, the deaths were found to be the result of illegal killings, the CITES analysis further revealed.
Over the course of 100 years, the number of pachyderms has fallen from around twelve million to approximately 400’000. At the same time, Africa’s population increased tenfold during this period to over 1.2 billion. In addition to stepping up the prosecution of poachers, the international community must also find ways to reconcile the interests of species conservation with those of local communities, said Higuero.
The CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is designed to ensure the sustainable international trade in animals and plants. The agreement protects more than 35’000 species.
The CITES species conservation conference planned for late May in Sri Lanka was cancelled following the devastating Easter Sunday attacks, in which more than 250 people were killed. A new date has not yet been announced.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. The scientific evidence is presented in the overview Studies on the Effects of Recreational Hunting.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
