Seriously Speaking

Kruger National Park 2007

Normally I like to blog about an exciting, scary or funny experience I have had in Africa, but today I’d like to talk about a serious subject. I’d like to talk about poaching; elephant poaching to be exact. You see, it was elephants that took me to Africa in the first place; my desire to see one in the wild.

Kynsna Elehpant Park 2001

As a little girl, my parents and I watched Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins. If memory serves me correctly the series came on Sunday nights showing on our black and white big piece of furniture looking thing we then called a TV . (The show must have aired sometime between Laugh-In and Hee Haw.) The episode I remember the most was about elephants. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember Marlin Perkins telling my parents and me that elephants were thought to be very intelligent mammals. Watching that episode was one of those moments that crept into my brain and is as embedded as my eye or hair color. I was glued to the television.

I was five years old when I saw that show. It took me another thirty five years to actually get to Africa and see an elephant in the wild. That magical day was August 20, 2001. I was on a sunrise game drive in Kruger National Park in South Africa on a Monday unlike any other Monday I have had in my life. That elephant encounter, as well as many other things, affected me greatly; so much so that I ended up moving to Africa shortly after.

David Sheldrick Foundation Nairobi, Kenya

Ten years ago -before I had my close encounter - I would have never imagined that elephant poaching could still be going on. Since then, I have learned that poaching is today still completely out of control. There was peak in poaching in the seventy’s and eighty’s but it seemingly got under control and elephant populations began to maintain and even grow. A huge statement was made in 1989 when then Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi, at the encouragement of Richard Leaky, burned Kenya’s’ entire stockpile of ivory in a stance to stop poaching and the trading of ivory. But today elephant poaching is still out of control. By some calculations one hundred elephants a day are being poached in Africa. That’s one hundred a day; almost thirty seven thousand elephants a year.

Okavango Delta, Botswana

Much of the market for ivory is due to a demand in China. I would love to believe much of the Chinese’s desire for elephant ivory is cultural ignorance not realizing that an elephant dies for that tusk. Some that have interviewed these Chinese ivory carvers and dealers of ivory have reported these people believe the elephant tusk is like a tooth and grows back. But it doesn’t. The elephant dies! Being that the matriarch is the oldest and likely to have the largest tusks it is likely she will be the target of poachers. If killed, her entire family could also parish without her extensive knowledge, guidance and leadership.

I have never come upon an elephant carcass that was poached, (although I think I have passed a couple of poachers on the lone roads of Africa) but I have seen the pictures of them with their faces hacked off. I can’t imagine anyone killing such a majestic animal. If you are in Africa or China or any other country in the world, don’t buy ivory regardless of how the shop dealers say the ivory was acquired or how beautiful the piece or intricate the carving. If the demand declines, the poaching declines; it’s as simple as that.

Wouldn’t you love for elephants to be here for future generations who desire to have an encounter with them in the wild? It’s a worthy ambition.