Elephant cries after being released.

[LaraOnline]

Thai ivory boom 'fuelling Africa elephant crisis'

Bangkok (AFP) - Thailand's "out of control" ivory market is driving Africa's elephant poaching crisis, conservationists warned Wednesday, accusing the kingdom of backsliding on its pledges.

The number of ivory products on sale in Bangkok nearly trebled from 5,865 in January last year to 14,512 in May 2014, according to the wildlife group TRAFFIC.

The Southeast Asian nation, a known hub for the illegal trade in tusks from Africa, has come under pressure to ban the sale of ivory from domestic elephants.

This legal trade is blamed for easing the smuggling of ivory into Thailand from other countries, most of which is made into ornaments or taken to China and Vietnam where tusks are used in traditional medicine.

In a report released Wednesday, TRAFFIC said the amount of ivory on sale in Bangkok could not have come from Thai elephants alone.

"Thailand's efforts to regulate local ivory markets have failed... their nation's ivory markets continue to be out of control and fuel the current African elephant poaching crisis," said TRAFFIC's Naomi Doak.

The number of shops selling ivory products in Bangkok also rose from 61 to 105 between January and December last year, the group said, with Doak estimating that up to 80 percent of the ivory in Bangkok was sourced from outside Thailand.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has warned of industrial-scale poaching to meet demand for ivory in Thailand and China, with more than 20,000 African elephants poached in 2013 alone for their tusks.

Thailand agreed to implement an action plan to tackle the problem during a CITES meeting in Bangkok last year, including better regulation of ivory sellers and adding African elephants to its list of protected species.

But Doak said the timeline for the plan was too long. She called on Thai authorities to suspend domestic sales of ivory until "enforcement agencies are given the power to effectively enforce the law".

Theerapat Prayurasiddhi, deputy director general of Thailand's Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said the kingdom was trying to control the trade, adding that conservationists should also focus on where the illegal trade originates.

"When we can have better control, the trade will be more strict and illegal trade will decrease," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/thai-ivory-boom-fuelling-africa-elephant-crisis-140051943.html

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Man if you guys like elephant tear-jerkers a you must watch the video of when two elephants are reunited after 20 years apart!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lF8em4uPdCg&feature=kp

Umm, tear jerker is right! So happy for that first elephant, too.


I just saw a video on FB or somewhere the other day of a lion who had been trained and then turned back into the wild. A few years later his trainer came to see him and he immediately stood and put his paws around the trainer in an embrace. These animals, no doubt, have emotions and can love.

 

[LaraOnline]

DS, your reply reminds me of a Jane Goodall video I saw recently...
This is a threadjack from the elephants that I am a little reluctant to do but it does help prove that animals have their own emotional lives, and deserve respect as living beings in our shared world...
There are longer versions of this video on Youtube (I googled 'jane goodall video Wounda') but this news story page provides the short video and also some background information.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2557961/Thanks-The-touching-moment-chimp-nursed-health-hugs-carer.html

Also have you seen this one already? The video quality is terrible but I loved it, only 30 secs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFhYwy912CE

 

[missy]

I AM AN ELEPHANT
by Stu Bykofsky
I was not born for your amusement any more than you were born for mine.
If you see me in the zoo, and especially in the circus, which arrived here yesterday, I am not there willingly.
I was kidnapped and carried far, far away from my home and my family. I might have been an adult, but was more likely a baby when captured. Some "brave" hunter might have killed my mother - who could be dangerous - and sold me to a zoo or circus as an orphan.
Elephants have large families, as you may know, each headed by a female. When a female is born into the family herd, she never leaves.
Closely and happily, we travel together, eat together, play together, rest together. For elephants, every herd is a "village" in which the baby is cared for by its mother, and her sisters, and her mother. Being connected to family is as much a part of our being as our floppy ears. It harms us to be separated from our family. Can you understand that?
Do you think I cannot feel loneliness and despair?
As you may know, we elephants grieve for our dead. We mourn for our family. Being disconnected from our family is like death for us.
That is what we suffer when we are captured, and kidnapped, and sold.
I am an elephant.
I know you love seeing me, in the circus or in the zoo.
I know some of you feel that, "It isn't a circus without elephants," or, "It isn't a zoo without elephants."
You are thinking about yourself - what you want, what you like.
Please think about me.
I am an elephant.
Do you think I was born to be chained to a stake, when my spirit cries to cross vast savannas? Do you think I was made to be pushed into cramped circus railway cars, to be hauled around the country like furniture?
I perform for eight minutes for your pleasure, then spend endless hours in misery.
Some zoos try hard to accommodate my physical and psychological needs, but few succeed.
My first need is spiritual and that was crushed when they stole me from my family in Africa.
In Africa, my numbers are dwindling as poachers slaughter my kind for a few pounds of ivory.
Imagine killing a majestic, five-ton animal for scraps of ivory. Does that offend your sense of decency?
And yet you don't think twice about the slow death of imprisoning me in a barren cage.
You believe letting your children get close to a captive elephant will make them appreciate me. Must that come at my expense? Can't they learn from videos, DVDs and Web casts, without my suffering?
Can't you teach them about the dignity of living animals by leaving us alone?
When you and your children see me do a circus "trick," you are delighted.
You don't ask yourself, "How did they make that elephant stand on his head?" I never stand on my head in the wild.
Was it positive reinforcement, as Ringling says? Was it through abuse, as undercover videos have shown?
I am an elephant.
My second need is for physical stimulation, by walking. My long legs are built to move. I walk a dozen or more miles a day, when I am free to.
No circus, and few zoos, give me what I need.
And still I hear you want to see me in a zoo, you want to see me perform circus "tricks."
You want to see me because you love me, you say.
If you love me, don't do this to me.
I am an elephant.

Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking. Why are people so horrible, so cruel, so vicious. Is it just ignorance? Madame Bijoux thank you for posting this. I just wish we lived in a kinder more humane world where all life was valued and treated as precious.

I once posted on Pricescope about the sadness in the world and someone "looked" at me in a strange way. But these images, abuses of animals and children, abused and hungry old people, sometimes will not let me go to sleep at night. I laugh a lot, but like you-and Lara, and I suspect Polished-I try not to ask for more to cry over than already comes my way. I am not better than others, just unable to close out the images.

Deb

Dear Deb, I feel the same. The images are haunting and the knowledge that one person or even many people can do nothing to stop such inhumane behavior is overwhelming.