Mar. 17, 2013 - There is nothing a mother elephant will not do for her infant, but even she cannot protect it from bullets. About a year ago, poachers attacked a family of forest elephants in central Africa. The biologist who witnessed the attack told us that wildlife guards were completely outgunned. In the end, an elephant mother, riddled with bullets and trumpeting with pain and fear, was left to use her enormous body to shield her baby. Her sacrifice was for naught; the baby was also killed. New York Times
Mar. 16, 2013 - Like so many of Africa’s wilderness areas, the Buffalo Springs and Samburu reserves in Kenya are too cramped — smaller than the city of Detroit — for the majestic inhabitants they are supposed to protect. Every savannah elephant that dwells in these reserves also roams far beyond the invisible boundaries, along the well-worn paths of its ancestors in search of food and water. New York Times
Feb. 21, 2013 - 21st February 2012—The international body that regulates wildlife trade should begin proceedings to impose sanctions on the countries most complicit in the illegal trade of ivory, which causes the deaths of up to 30,000 African elephants each year. WWF and TRAFFIC are urging the 177 governments gathering in Bangkok early next month under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) TRAFFIC Press Release
Jan. 17, 2013 - Ivory Poaching Threatens ‘Elephant Memory’ The large number of mature and experienced African elephants being killed illegally for their ivory is exposing younger surviving elephants to a higher risk of mortality from predation and other risks, wildlife conservationists said today. National Geographic in A Voice for Elephants
Jan. 16, 2013 - Press Release Embargoed until 9 p.m. GMT (2pm Pacific Time, 5 p.m. Eastern) on January 16, 2013 The devastating impacts of a recent surge in ivory poaching have been chronicled in detail by new research on one of Africa’s best-studied elephant populations. Save the Elephants
Jan. 7, 2013 - NAIROBI, Kenya — Eleven elephants were slaughtered by ivory poachers and their tusks were chopped off, Kenyan officials said Monday, in one of the worst single episodes of poaching in Kenya in recent years. New York Times
Dec. 31, 2012 - ZAKOUMA NATIONAL PARK, Chad — Just before dawn, the rangers were hunched over in prayer, facing east. They pressed their foreheads into the dry earth and softly whispered Koranic verses, their lips barely moving. A cool wind bit at their faces. The New York Times
Dec. 11, 2012 - Fueled by a rising demand for ivory, the mass killing of African elephants has reached extraordinary levels. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman discusses his in-depth investigation of the deadly ivory trade, which involves the U.S.-backed military forces of several African nations. Yale Environment 360
Dec. 11, 2012 - NAIROBI, Kenya — Malaysian authorities said Tuesday that they had uncovered more than 1,000 smuggled elephant tusks hidden in secret compartments in two shipments of mahogany, a staggeringly large seizure that several conservationists said was the biggest in history. New York Times
Dec. 9, 2012 - IVORY hunters are travelling to Siberia in a search for tusks from long-extinct woolly mammoths. The boom in the trade is proving lucrative, with ivory unearthed from the mud of riverbanks fetching around £20 a pound. Sunday Express
Dec. 5, 2012 - While South Africa is battling rhino poaching, it seems to be escaping the continental elephant purge. But not for long, writes Sipho Kings. Tens of thousands of elephants were killed across Africa last year and populations are plummeting. In 2007 there were roughly half a million elephants in Africa. This number has steadily grown after the trade in ivory was banned in 1989, until the last decade. Now there has been a dramatic increase in the mass killing of elephants. Mail and Guardian
Nov. 26, 2012 - Last year, African conservationists saw the highest level of elephant poaching in more than a decade, and ivory seizures were at their highest recorded levels since 1989 — the year that international trade in elephant ivory was banned. Voice of America
Sep. 3, 2012 - GARAMBA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — In 30 years of fighting poachers, Paul Onyango had never seen anything like this. Twenty-two dead elephants, including several very young ones, clumped together on the open savanna, many killed by a single bullet to the top of the head. The New York Times
Aug. 14, 2012 - Karatu — FOUR suspected notorious elephant poachers have been arrested in the Northern Highlands forest which strides the Mbulu-Mbulu ward of Karatu District and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA). The NCAA Manager of Conservation Services, Mr Amiyo Amiyo said on Tuesday that the suspected poachers have not been using regular methods to kill the elephants. In the place of firearms, the poachers have devised an unorthodox technique to ensnare and kill the elephants by using pumpkins spiked with highly poisonous chemicals. allAfrica
Aug. 10, 2012 - In March I wrote about the coordinated slaughter of elephants early this year by poachers in Cameroon. The scale of the killings is hard to absorb: well over 300 are thought to have been killed within the span of a few months, wiping out a significant portion of the country’s elephant population. The New York Times
Aug. 9, 2012 - In early 2012, a heavily-armed band of foreign poachers slaughtered over 300 elephants for their ivory in Bouba N'Djida National Park. Since the incident Cameroon has increased protection at its park and announced plans to hire 2,500 new rangers to be deployed across the country. [VIDEO]
Jul. 25, 2012 - This short film helps explain the threat that Africa's Elephants face. The demand for their ivory tusks is so great that they will be lucky to survive it. [VIDEO]
Aug. 1, 2011 - Highly emotional and completely guileless, elephants mourn their dead—and across Africa, they are grieving daily as demand from China’s “suddenly wealthy” has driven the price of ivory to $700 a pound or more. With tens of thousands of elephants being slaughtered each year for their tusks, raising the specter of an “extinction vortex,” Alex Shoumatoff travels from Kenya to Seattle to Guangzhou, China, to expose those who are guilty in the massacre—and recognize those who are determined to stop it. Vanity Fair