Elephants: With More risk of extinction than I thought – Consensus Journal

  With a total of 33 thousand 630 dead animals from 2010 to 2012, elephants are endangered

  By: Agencies

 La elephant poaching in Africa could be worse than estimated in recent years, which would seriously threatening the future of this animal on the continent, warned on Monday a new report.

  Researchers at the Samburu Nature Reserve Kenya developed a new model for the entire continent it possible to detect an increase in deaths of elephants.

  The study, published by the American Academy of Science (PNAS), notes that the populations of these mammals are falling at a rate of 2% per year, a decline that exceeds their ability to reproduce.

  “Basically, this means that we are beginning to lose the species,” said the author of the work by George Wittemyer, assistant professor in the department of fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology of the Colorado State University in United States.

  Although the number of elephants living in the wild is difficult to calculate, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF, its acronym in English) estimates that between 470 thousand and 690 thousand of these animals in the African continent.

  The study indicates that the annual rate of elephants killed illegally between 2010 and 2012 in relation to the existing population of these animals in Africa was 6.8%, representing a total of 33 thousand 630 dead animals at the hands of poachers in those three years.

  Although hunting declined slightly in 2012, the figures are still too high, leading to a population decline of 2-3% per year, after taking into account the rates of reproduction.

  Central Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique are the areas most affected by poaching house, requiring the authors of the research. Only in Central African elephant populations declined by 63.7% between 2002 and 2012.

  According to the report, poaching increases especially when the ivory price exceeds $ 30 per kg.

  “Today is $ 150 and poaching becomes a big problem,” said Wittemyer.

  “Our analysis shows a high price in the illegal ivory trade paid for the elephants in Africa and suggests that the current hunting rate is higher than the estimated reproductive capacity of the species,” insisted the authors.

  One factor that partly explains the increased hunting is its high price in countries like China, which tripled between 2010 and 2014, rising from $ 750 to two thousand 100 kg, the data indicate Save the Elephants (save the elephants.)

  In the early twentieth century, 20 million African elephants were counted but the number fell to just 1.2 million in 1980.

  Although hunting was banned in 1989, are currently only 500 thousand of these animals, according to figures from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).