tagged w/ Illegal Wildlife Trade
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African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals' plight.
The elephant death rate from poaching throughout Africa is about 8 percent a year based on recent studies, which is actually higher than the 7.4 percent annual death rate that led to the international ivory trade ban nearly 20 years ago, said Samuel Wasser, a UW biology professor.
But the poaching death rate in the late 1980s was based on a population that numbered more than 1 million. Today the total African elephant population is less than 470,000.
"If the trend continues, there won't be any elephants except in fenced areas with a lot of enforcement to protect them," said Wasser. He is lead author of a paper in the August issue of Conservation Biology that contends elephants are on a course that could mean most remaining large groups will be extinct by 2020 unless renewed public pressure brings about heightened enforcement.
African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an... more
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Take Action. . . Make a Promise!
Help Save the African Wildlife
The illegal and commercial trade in wild meat – or bushmeat – poses one of the most significant threats to wildlife populations and dependent human communities around the world. It has already resulted in widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa, and may push the African great apes—chimpanzees, gorillas, and bonobos—toward extinction within the next decade.People around the globe—like you—want to take action on the bushmeat crisis. Now you can!
The Bushmeat Crisis Task Force (BCTF) and its supporting members have created a way for everyone to be involved – The Bushmeat Promise. This campaign is designed to raise public awareness about the bushmeat crisis and promote direct actions to make a difference. And, by tracking individual efforts, we can document the global collective voice on the bushmeat issue.
If you decide to sign on to the Bushmeat Promise, you will be provided with a Bushmeat Promise Certificate for display and a list of actions you can take to protect endangered African Wildlife in the face of the bushmeat trade. We also have some ideas from others that have signed the Promise. For example, you might choose to educate your friends, support a local project, or volunteer time with a national conservation organization. By signing on to The Bushmeat Promise, you commit to just those actions that best match your individual resources, personality, and interests. In addition, you will be asked to provide contact information so we can keep in touch with you about the actions you take to fulfill your Promise.
Sign on to the BUSHMEAT PROMISE now!
http://www.bushmeat.org/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=133543&parentname=CommunityPage&parentid=6&mode=2&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true
Take Action. . . Make a Promise!
Help Save the African Wildlife
The illegal and... more
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..the leatherback question is of course a cover for the real question you and others have asked about other species. “What species can we allow to go extinct without major harm (as in bodily) or disruption (as in lifestyle which includes all the props — houses car, roads, food, that enable us to live the way we do) of mankind?”
The answer is:
We are already allowing species to go extinct, and will continue to in the future, due to lack of resources, personal and political will, and knowledge. We have already started “events” that we know of, such as global warming and others that we don’t, but will affect the leatherback and other animals like the polar bear in the Arctic. The reality is we have unwittingly started a science project, on a global scale, that we are part of.
The project’s premise?
“Just how much biodiversity do we need?”
The answer?
“Who knows, because we might not be around to see how this experiment ends.”
So saving as many animals and plants as we can, trying to slow down global warming (we can’t stop it) is our attempt to try to be around when the experiment ends.
--Allen Salzberg
(Publisher, HerpDigest)
..the leatherback question is of course a cover for the real question you and others... more
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Virunga National Park -- Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and chairman of the Primate Specialist Group of the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. “If we can’t stop these attacks, our closest living relatives will disappear from the planet.”
Ndeze, as park rangers named him, survived the July 22 attack by unknown assailants on the Rugendo gorilla group that killed Senkwekwe, the dominant silverback, and three adult females (another adult female is missing and presumed dead). Ndeze was carried by his brother from the slaughter; both were later found by members of the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Program and Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN). They had to tranquilize the brother to rescue the infant, who would have died from lack of care.
Ndeze is now being cared for at a primate rehabilitation center in Goma, Congo, called the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International rehabilitation center. He joined another infant orphaned six weeks earlier in an attack on a different group in the park that killed another
adult female.
Conservation International has agreed to provide money from its Primate Action Fund foradditional guards in Virunga to protect the mountain gorillas, which until the recent attacks had been a rare success story for the great apes of Africa, whose numbers have been falling elsewhere across the continent by Ebola virus, illegal trade and deforestation.
* Find how you can help save these gentle giants, please visit these organizations dedicated to saving this incredible species.
www.iccnrdc.cd/
www.wildlifedirect.org/blogAdmin/gorilladoctors
http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/2008/05/16/video-tshiaberimu-gorillas/
http://getinvolved.conservation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=gorillavideo
http://www.wcs.org/international/Africa/gorilla
http://www.igcp.org/gorillas/gorillas.htm
http://mgvp.32ad.com/default.aspx
http://gorilla.wildlifedirect.org/2008/05/16/video-tshiaberimu-gorillas/
http://www.gorillas.org/
Virunga National Park -- Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation... more
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