Home/Posts Tagged ‘elephants’
Posts Tagged ‘elephants’
Animals, Conservation, Videos & Documentaries, Aug 15th, 2012,
Seems some elephants are getting a bit of European style social welfare lately. Captive ones, that is. Oh, and only some captive elephants. Those in British circuses, many zoos and touristy theme parks in Thailand for instance, have it pretty rough indeed. Like I said, an elephant’s life can be pretty shit these days. Nonetheless, one African elephant at an Austrian zoo has received an artificial insemination treatment and is now 9 months into her 22 month pregnancy. 22 months – must be why Christian symbolism uses the elephant to represent patience. Though artificially inseminating elephants is nothing new, using…
Tags: artificial insemination, Austria, Burma, electro-ejaculator, elephants, zoo
Conservation, Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, Nov 22nd, 2011,
Poaching in Kenya’s forests, fuelled by increased demand for ivory in China, is threatening the East African nation’s elephant population. Alternative sources of income, gleaned from carbon offset schemes (emissions trading) and forest preservation could be the answer to not only providing economic incentives for sustainable forestry and elephant conservation, but could also save millions of tons of CO2 in the process. Details on the project from Deutsche Welle: Project Goal: Forest protection Scale: 200,000 hectares of forest Investment: Trading in emission certificates is set to yield $7.4 million Time frame: 30 years CO2 Savings: 1.2 million tons per year See…
Tags: elephants, emissions, forests, Kenya
Conservation, Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, Sep 12th, 2010,
As Sri Lanka’s human population grows, its number of wild elephants diminishes. It is a conflict that the elephants are losing, as humans take over tracts of land necessary for elephant survival. Land corridors are being marked off with electric fences and used for cattle farming, effectively reducing elephant food and water supplies. About four elephants are being killed per week in Sri Lanka, according to a BBC News report, but the casualties are not only on the side of the elephants: Last year the conflict between humans and non-domesticated elephants saw the deaths of 50 people and 228 elephants….
Tags: elephants, humans, Land, Sri Lanka
Nature, Sep 1st, 2010,
I don’t get animal rights activists’ crusade against circuses. The animals are fed well and their lives are in less danger in comparison to their natural environments. They look happy while performig. An hour spent in a circus is also a rare occasion to look at wild animals. Why do some people want to ban them? A: For several reasons. Wild animals are wild, which means they should be born, live and die in the wild. Those that are used for entertainment aren’t really wild – they’re usually born in captivity; neglected, not fed properly and often tortured while being…
Tags: animals, captivity, circus, circuses, cruelty, elephants
Conservation, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 25th, 2010,
The British animal welfare charity, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), has published a highly critical report on the treatment of elephants in UK animal parks. The RSPCA report – written by scientists at Bristol University in England – found that elephants at British zoos suffer from a host of health and psychological problems including obesity, obsessive behavior and an infant mortality higher than in the wild. From an article in the Telegraph: Putting them in a zoo makes them obese because they do not eat the right food – they are used to coarse,…
Tags: ban, British, elephants, import, report, RSPCA, UK, welfare, zoos
Nature, Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Aug 19th, 2010,
Summer is coming to an end and that can only mean one thing: it’s time to go back to school. Whether it’s your first year in grade school or your last year of college, you’ll have a lot of work to look forward to. Homework, projects, reports, tests, midterms, pop quizzes, final exams—it’s enough to drive you out of your mind! Not everyone can be at the head of the class, however, so let’s see how you compare with the top 10 smartest animals in the world: 10. Pig Snuffling their way into the tenth spot on our list, pigs…
Tags: animals smarter than humans, ants, cephalopods, chimpanzees, crows, dogs, dolphins, elephants, great apes, intelligence, octopus, parrots, pigs, ravens, smartest animals in the world, squid, top 10 list, whales
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Jun 10th, 2010,
There are strange things at work among the Borneo Elephant population as of late. Two female calves were found abandoned in Borneo recently. One was a 2-year-old stuck in a plantation moat and the other was a 6-month-old wandering in another plantation located in Malaysia’s eastern Sabah state. Both calves were starving. The shock of the matter is nothing like this has ever happened before—there is no known case of those elephant mothers simply abandoning their young. Laurentius Ambu, director of the state wildlife department, said that an official investigation is underway to find out what might have caused such…
Tags: abandoned, borneo, critically endangered species, elephants, Malaysia, orphans, Pygmy Elephants, rescued, Sabah
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Mar 25th, 2010,
Another endangered species was found dead in Indonesia, but this time it wasn’t a tiger. Poachers are the suspected killers of a 10-year-old male elephant, particularly because the tusks were removed. Residents of Petani village found the elephant’s body. Mulyo Utomo, from a local nature conservation agency, mentioned that “we also found a stab wound on the right side of the chest, piercing through his liver.” Sumatran Elephants are a subspecies of the Asian Elephant. They are also terribly endangered. As the name suggests, they can only be found in Sumatra. Less than 3,000 Sumatran Elephants remain and most of…
Tags: elephants, endangered species, Indonesia, persecution, poaching, Sumatran Elephant
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 19th, 2010,
2009 was a banner year for the confiscation of illegal ivory, with 14,000 articles made from the body parts of elephants seized – a rise of more than 2,000 pieces compared with 2007, according to an article in Sunday’s Observer. But this increase is not down to better law enforcement, but rather a growth in the grizzly trade spurned on by soaring ivory prices in East Asia, which have risen from ₤150 ($245/ €170) per kg in 2004 to a whopping ₤4,000 ($6,500/4,500€). ‘At the same time, scientists estimate that between 8% and 10% of Africa’s elephants are now being…
Tags: Africa, Asia, ban, Congo, elephants, ivory, Kenya, Observer, Tanzania
Nature, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Dec 29th, 2009,
The African Elephant may be one of the largest animals on the planet, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its own share of problems. Poaching has been on the rise again and now they face another issue: African countries need to decide whether or not to allow ivory sales for a limited amount of time. As a migratory animal, the elephant population varies throughout the different African countries; some countries have strong populations, while others are decreasing at an alarming rate. Tanzania and Zambia are 2 that are considered to have healthy populations. They’ve already started to take advantage of…
Tags: Africa, african elephants, CITES, elephants, ivory, ivory ban, ivory sales ban, Nature, poaching
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Dec 3rd, 2009,
Siberian Tigers are on the decline, thanks to poaching. Elephants, leopards and a number of endangered species are also falling in numbers, thanks to poaching. More searches are being conducted and arrests are being made, but it does not seem enough to help our animal friends. A 3-month-long operation in Africa, which included the raiding of shops, intercepting vehicles and the use of sniffer dogs, uncovered more than 3,800 pounds (1,768 kilograms) of illegal elephant ivory. According to Awad Dahia, Interpol’s eastern Africa chief, the operation was setup by the international police organization and included the aid of customs departments,…
Tags: elephants, endangered species, ivory ban, poaching, Siberian tigers, Wildlife & Flora
Nature, Wildlife & Flora, Oct 8th, 2009,
Although the ivory trade was made illegal, poaching incidents have increased over the years, pushing African Elephants ever closer to the brink of extinction. Recently, more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of bloodstained ivory were seized from 100 illegally killed elephants at airports. Kenya and Ethiopian authorities used specially trained dogs to sniff out the shipments of ivory; both of which were to be sent as “unaccompanied luggage” to Bangkok. Even though the ivory trade was banned internationally in 1989, it has been steadily on the increase in recent years; going from 47 elephants killed in 2007 to 98 deaths…
Tags: elephants, ivory, trade, Wildlife & Flora
