Elephants

African and Asian elephants are poached for their ivory tusks (and to a lesser degree, for their meat and leather). For instance, elephant populations in Zimbabwe dropped 11% since 2005, and as much as 74% in some parts of the country – largely due to poaching. In fact, since January 2012, it is estimated that approximately 92 elephants are poached every day.

In Africa, the illegal international trade in ivory has been widely acknowledged as an extremely serious threat to the survival of elephants across their range. The scale of this threat is increasing annually and is facilitated by organized criminal networks, especially those with ties between Africa and Asia.

Ivory trade routes through the African continent are often very complex, involving multiple transit and exit points. West Africa has been identified as a major trade hub, exporting ivory sourced not only from West African forests, but also from Central African forests and East African savannahs. Numerous seizures of African elephant tusks, ivory carvings, and other body parts and products (skin, hair, bones, etc.), occurring both within African source and transit countries, as well as within Asian and European destination countries, indicate a flourishing illegal trade.

Born Free takes action to bring an end to poaching by:

• Supporting West and Central African countries in their efforts to increase enforcement capacity to better counter elephant poaching and trafficking within their borders: leading threat assessments, organizing training workshops, analyzing national legislation, and other measures. Learn more »
• Supporting legislation to ban the trade of ivory: helping to persuade the UK to ban the commercial trade in elephant ivory within, to, and from the UK; submitting a letter to Taiwan to encourage a domestic ivory ban; and sending letters to advocate for state ivory bans in the U.S. as opportunities arise. As of July 2015, legislators in nearly 20 states across the U.S. had introduced legislation to prohibit the trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn.
• Educating the government to inform policy change: Seeking an accurate and complete picture of the depths of elephant poaching, Born Free USA commissioned C4ADS and its expert defense analysts to examine the military, national security, and localized conflict aspects of elephant poaching and the ivory trade in two groundbreaking reports:
  Ivory’s Curse: The Militarization and Professionalization of Poaching in Africa (April 2014) finds that significant criminal syndicates and organized terrorist gangs engage in elephant poaching to acquire ivory, which they sell to buy arms – and that political elites and state security forces are often complicit.

  Out of Africa: Mapping the Global Trade in Illicit Elephant Ivory (August 2014) focuses on the ivory supply chain and the trafficking of ivory from the bush in Africa to retail markets in Asia.

• We’ve exposed the poaching hotspots, the illicit actors, the exit ports in Africa, and the transit routes to Asia. Now, Born Free USA is utilizing these cutting-edge reports to encourage legislators, conservation authorities, and defense agencies to concentrate on these hotspots and close down the transit routes that bring ivory to East Asian markets.

International, national, and regional attention is vital to saving elephants and rhinos from the global scourge of poaching for their ivory tusks and horns. Click here to download our infographic about the ivory trade. Replace this infographic with something new we create/something updated.

A trophy hunt is a practice in which hunters pay to kill wild animals, predominantly for “fun.” Parts of the animal, usually the head, are kept by the hunter as a “trophy.” Despite being listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, African elephants are heavily targeted in trophy hunts (in the Big Five species to hunt). Sadly, trophy hunting adds additional pressure onto these already-imperiled populations. Learn more about trophy hunting »

Driven by an expanding human population, the current greatest threat to Asian elephants is habitat loss (due to habitat destruction for agriculture) and the human/elephant conflict that results. Elephants have long been persecuted for eating or trampling crops, or for injuring or killing people. Asian elephants are also prone to collisions with railway trains.

Since 1979, African elephants have lost over 50% of their range. Along with poaching, habitat loss has contributed to serious population declines for elephants across Africa.

Humans capture elephants from the wild and brutally train them to work for us and to perform for our entertainment. Both African and Asian elephants are exploited in their own countries or are exported overseas to be held captive in zoos and to be involuntary performers in circuses. Large numbers of Asian elephants are also kept in temples, forced to carry tourists for elephant rides, or used in the timber industry.

• Visit www.whatelephantslike.org for fun, educational ways to spark a child’s interest in elephants, including a book (with an animated version available), a downloadable coloring book, and more.
• Download our Child’s Circus Brochure, which is “from a kid to a kid.” It contains facts about elephants in the wild vs. elephants in the circus, and is told in kid-friendly terms.
• Learn more about animals in entertainment.
• Read about how our Canada office helps captive elephants, including successful efforts to retire three zoo elephants to a sanctuary, and the passing of bylaws to stop the use of elephants for entertainment and promotions in Toronto.