By James Gorman, The New York Times, March 5, 2013
Sixty percent of
the forest elephants in Africa were killed from 2002 to 2011, scientists
reported on Monday, putting a number to the rampant slaughter of both forest
and savannah elephants for their ivory.
The increase in killing of elephants in countries like the Democratic
Republic of Congo to feed a voracious international ivory market is
well known, said Fiona Maisels, of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the
University of Stirling, in Scotland, one of two primary authors of the paper published in PLoS One. But, she said,
international action requires hard data. “So we just provided it.”
To nail down the numbers, she and Samantha Strindberg of the
conservation society, the other primary author, compiled data gathered in 80
surveys in central Africa, which covers about 95 percent of the forest
elephant’s range. Scores of scientists, mostly African, participated. The paper
has 62 authors.
The two kinds of elephants are considered separate species by some
conservation groups and subspecies by others. Unlike the savannah elephants,
which can be seen from truck, plane or helicopter, forest elephants are not
easy to spot. The studies relied on walking long straight lines through dense
forest, noting the presence of dung and other evidence of wildlife.
The decline in forest elephants, the authors conclude, is
“catastrophic,” and the best way to protect remaining elephants, they write, is
“reduction of poaching and trade in elephant products.”
Most of the forest elephants live in central and western Africa and
Dr. Maisels estimated there are about 80,000 left. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature
estimated the total number of elephants in Africa as probably around 500,000,
perhaps higher.
In
the 1930s and 1940s, there were three to five million elephants, according to
estimates by the World Wildlife Fund.
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