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+32 +1
Tragic And Mysterious Elephant Burial Ritual Witnessed by Scientists
Asian elephants loudly mourn and bury their dead calves, according to a study by Indian scientists that details animal behaviour reminiscent of human funeral rites.
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+25 +1
Study shows tragic drop in African elephants
Scanning Botswana's remote Linyanti swamp from the low flying chopper, elephant ecologist Mike Chase can't hide the anxiety and dread as he sees what he has seen too many times before. "I don't think anybody in the world has seen the number of dead elephants that I've seen over the last two years," he says. From above, we spot an elephant lying on its side in the cracked river mud. From a distance it could be mistaken for a resting animal. But the acrid stench of death hits us before we even land. Up close, it is a horror.
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+27 +1
Elephants are the end of a 60m-year lineage – last of the megaherbivores
Four-tuskers, hoe-tuskers, shovel-tuskers are all wiped out – now only a fragment of this keystone species remains. By Patrick Barkham. (Aug. 12, 2016)
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+9 +1
Today Is World Elephant Day. Here’s Why That Matters
Today is World Elephant Day, and while that means it’s a great time to catch up on cute elephant videos online, there are also serious problems facing the species. Elephant numbers have dropped by 62% over the last decade, according to the World Elephant Day website, and an estimated 100 African elephants are killed each day by poachers. Asian elephants are also in trouble: there are fewer than 40,000 Asian elephants left in the world, which is less than one-tenth of the African elephant population.
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+30 +1
Elephants are now being born without tusks because of poaching
An increasing number of African elephants are now born tuskless because poachers have consistently targetted animals with the best ivory over decades, fundamentally altering the gene pool. In some areas 98 per cent of female elephants now have no tusks, researchers have said, compared to between two and six per cent born tuskless on average in the past.
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+24 +1
Lightning kills four elephants in Sri Lanka
Four elephants, including two calves, were killed by lightning in northern Sri Lanka in one of the worst wildlife tragedies to hit the country in years, officials said Sunday. A female elephant, aged about 25 years, and two of her calves, aged 10 months and two years, and an eight-year-old female were found dead Sunday just outside the Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary, an official said.
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+21 +1
Villagers are knitting jumpers for elephants to protect them from near-freezing temperatures
Elephants in India are sporting colourful woollen jumpers after villagers knitted the super-size garments to protect the animals from near-freezing temperatures. Women in a village near the Wildlife SOS Elephant Conservation and Care Centre in the northern city of Mathura reportedly began producing the colourful, pyjama-like garments after staff at the centre warned temperatures were approaching sub-zero at night.
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+13 +1
Zimbabwe ships live elephants to wildlife parks in China
More than 30 wild elephants were being readied on Friday evening for an airlift from Zimbabwe to captivity in China, according to wildlife advocates. The founder of Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, Johnny Rodrigues, said on Friday that their plane was still at Victoria Falls airport because officials could not find scales big enough to weigh the animals, which were confined inside heavy crates. But once that was accomplished, he added, “they’re gone”.
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+23 +1
Elephant Refugees Flee to Last Stronghold in Africa
The elephants swim across the river in a straight line, trunks jutting out of the water like snorkels. With low, guttural bellows, they push their bodies together, forming a living raft to bolster a calf too tiny to stay afloat on its own. This pachyderm flotilla has a dangerous destination in mind: The grassy shores of Namibia, where elephants are literally free game for legal hunters. The animals will risk their lives to feed here before fording the Chobe River again, back to the safety of Botswana's Chobe National Park.
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+27 +1
Brazil opens Latin America's first elephant sanctuary
The first elephant sanctuary in Latin America has opened in Brazil to provide a home for an estimated 50 circus animals from across the region. Guida and Maia, both over 40 years old, are the first residents. They will be provided with veterinary care and live out their lives in forested areas with pastures. A US-based group bought the land to give the elephants a refuge as zoos in the region close and more laws prohibit the use of animals in circuses.
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+29 +1
Chinese jailed 30 years for slaughter of 226 elephants
Two Chinese poachers were yesterday sentenced to 30 years in jail each or pay a record Sh108.7 billion fine in one of the heaviest sentences aimed at curbing the illegal trade.
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+10 +1
The zoo that wants to release wild elephants in Denmark
Rewilding is here to stay. The term broadly refers to restoring areas of wilderness to their former glory, but it is the reintroduction of large mammals, from wolves to beavers, that has captured the popular imagination, and come to define this ambitious conservation strategy. Such projects are not without controversy. Some ecologists worry that reintroducing extinct animals to our radically changed modern ecosystems might have unforeseen impacts.
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+31 +1
Most Ivory for Sale Comes From Recently Killed Elephants—Suggesting Poaching Is Taking Its Toll
Carbon dating finds that almost all trafficked ivory comes from animals killed less than three years before their tusks hit the market. By Rachel Nuwer.
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+20 +1
Injured baby elephant receives water therapy to help her walk again
A baby elephant who lost part of her foot in a snare has been receiving hydrotherapy to help her walk again. Six-month-old "Clear Sky" was wounded three months ago when she stepped into a trap laid by farmers to protect their crops in Thailand. She was found hobbling and alone after being separated from her mother.
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+16 +1
If you were an elephant …
… the world would be a brighter, smellier, noisier place – and you would be a better, wiser, kinder person. Charles Foster, the author of Being a Beast explains all.
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0 +1
Baby Elephant Rescue Help Me Out of The Rope
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+21 +1
Elephant whose living conditions inspired protests dies at 69
Hanoko, which means “flower child,” lived almost her entire life at Tokyo’s Inokashira Park Zoo. By Christopher Brennan. (May 26)
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+19 +1
Study: Asian elephant society is egalitarian
New research reveals Asian elephant societies to be less hierarchical than their African relatives. In Africa, elephant societies are characterized by matriarchal leadership and a clear pecking order. Many scientists believed Asian elephants organized and interacted in similar ways. But when a team scientists lead by biologists from Colorado State University surveyed Asian elephant societies, they observed less than a third as many instances of dominance and deferment behavior -- not enough to establish any clear hierarchical patterns among individuals.
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+11 +1
African Wildlife: Darkness Falls
Today, wildlife experts speak of an “elephant holocaust.” The regions of Africa that have suffered most from poaching are those steeped in conflict, where it is too dangerous for conservationists to work. Robert Ross’s new book of photographs of the African Selous reserve brings us into a fast disappearing world and keep us there.
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+15 +1
Tories’ failure to halt ivory trade ‘risks extinction of elephants’
The UK is putting elephants at risk of extinction through its broken promises on the ivory trade, according to campaigners. Before the last election, the Conservative party pledged to shut down the UK’s domestic ivory market: at the time 30,000 elephants a year were being slaughtered for their tusks. But no action has been taken. While bans on the international trade in ivory exist, a failure to observe similar measures at a national level is being exploited by criminal gangs who smuggle ivory into the UK, where it can be passed off as antique.
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