Sandra from Slovenia has a passion for animals and fosters orphaned baby elephants with the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and Australia ZOO. She is trying to bring to the attention of bloggers the still functioning Ivory Trade.
Ivory trade is diminishing their elephant numbers severely... and why? "Between 8% and l0% of Africa’s remaining elephants (now estimated to number at best some 300,000, down from l.3 million 100 years ago) are being killed annually. Apart from the poaching toll, there is the unseen silent death of all the tuskless dependent young i.e. all calves under 5 years of age who are still milk dependent and cannot survive without it (some survive only thanks to the DSWT). Then there many others that have already, and will continue to succumb to the affects of drought since Africa is predicted to become ever drier and more prone to the sort of devastating drought experienced in 2009 when rivers and lakes dried up and elephants died in large numbers as a result. "
Sandra states on her blog:
In March 2010 the l5th Conference of the Parties that are signatories to the CITES Convention will seal the ultimate fate of Elephants in Africa. Either the elephants will be granted a reprieve through the imposition of another (this time long-term) international ivory trade ban, or the demise of the world’s elephants will be sealed simply because signatories to the Convention selfishly seek trade with ivory consuming Nations above the survival of the elephants. " Read more here:
The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust
Please, check out the link above and look through the DSWT to see what an amazing job they are doing. Please, share the plight of the elephants with your friends, on your blogs, on Facebook... It would mean the world to the African elephant, all the caring people and me. Write to CITES (http://www.cites.org/) and help the African Elephant!!!
Thanks Sandra for all this information!
Thanks for drawing attention to the plight of African elephants and the work constantly being done to save them. We are very lucky here in Botswana, where our elephant population is flourishing...
Poaching has always been a problem. if everyone refused to buy ivory or rhino horns or gorilla footstools or leopard skins, and on and on, there wouldn't be a market for it. i know its simplistic, but it's true.
i hate poachers. and i hate worse the people who buy these things.
thank you for sharing this lorac.
Hi Karen... your photography here is very striking! You really know what you're doing. I bet you crop the shot in your mind as you're shooting it.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Lorac. It means so much to me.
Sandra
Fantastic sunset - such beautiful colors.
I have a sunset too, intresting how different the colors are.
Love sunsets!
...moments before sunset
This is a beautiful photo. From the other Sandra