'Slaughtered for their ivory': Up to 35,000 elephants slain in one year, charity says

[xchrom]

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/30/11467687-slaughtered-for-their-ivory-up-to-35000-elephants-slain-in-one-year-charity-says?lite

LONDON -- Up to 35,000 elephants were killed last year for their tusks, the head of a charity told NBC News.

Charlie Mayhew, the chief executive of Tusk Trust, said: "What we have witnessed over the last 18 months or two years has been a significant escalation in the poaching of both rhino for rhino horn and elephant for ivory, fueled by sort of a dramatic increase in demand from consumers in the Far East.

"Last year we believe that as many as 35,000 elephants may have been slaughtered for their ivory," he added. "South Africa lost 434 rhino last year. This year we know that they've lost more than 170 rhino. That's more than an average of one every 15 hours and that is just South Africa alone."

A rhino horn is worth as much as $40,000 on the black market.

[Esse Quam Videri]

1. Absolutely disgusting

I think I have lost my appetite for breakfast but thank you so much for posting so everyone will be aware of these atrocities.

[LeftinOH]

2. Looks like Prince William and Princess Kate are taking a public stand against

this. Good. Whatever it takes.

[ladjf]

3. They need to try Viagra or some other drug. nt

[happyslug]

4. Viagra is a lously dagger handle and does NOT cure fever, pain or arthritis

Rhino horn is a traditional handle for well to do Yemani and other Southern Arabia men. Technically it is illegal to import Rhino horn into Yeman or elsewhere in the Arabian peninsula, but given the money from oil, a minor problem for the people who want the dagger handles.

Now PBS had a special a few years ago, that tried to keep the official US Government position that it is far eastern medicine NOT Arabian Daggers that is cause for the demand, but even in that special, the medical reasons for Rhino Horn was for everything else EXCEPT impotence. i.e In traditional Chinese Medicine Rhino Horn cures fever, pain, arthritis among other problems, but NOT anything to do with sex or sex drive.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/rhinoceros/rhino-horn-use-fact-vs-fiction/1178/
http://savingrhinos.org/rhino_horn_yemen.html
http://www.rhinos-irf.org/en/art/804/
http://www.bagheera.com/inthewild/van_anim_rhino.htm
http://teamrhino.co.uk/?page_id=12

Black bear is the preferred aphrodisiac among Chinese Medicine users (and Viagra has had a huge impact are illegal killing of black bears in the US and Asia).

[ladjf]

5. I'm getting tired of posting on DU. No matter what the comment, there will be several telling

you how dumb and uninformed you are.

[happyslug]

6. Just pointing out errors spread by the idiots in the News Media is NOT that you are dumb....

How else is someone to learn the truth unless it is pointed out that that person? Ignorance is often the result of someone NOT telling someone what are the facts of a situation, while idiots are given free reign to spread their lies. That is all I was doing and what others have done to me. It is part of learning. People make errors and it is better to show them the error then to leave them continue in that error. That is all I was doing and hopefully what others are doing (including to me when I make an error).

[ladjf]

7. My post was directed at those who erroneously buy ground rhino horn to be used for medicinal,

most aphrodisiac, purposes. Most reports I've seen cite that as the primary demand for the rhino horn.
http://savingrhinos.org/rhino-extinction-crisis.html

My post what was a suggestion that those who are having erectile dysfunction should turn to
drugs in Viagra instead of wiping out the rhinos due to a superstition. Perhaps I should have
made my post clearer.

Thanks for your response. But, I was already well posted on the rhino kill situation.

I'm also very concerned about the elephant poaching. I'm not sure what those tusks are used for. But, whatever it is, there are artificial products that could factually function just as well
as ivory. (Very few pianos are still produced with ivory keys. Plastics are cheaper, don't discolor
and last longer.)