One of world's biggest elephants, with huge ass tusks, killed by poachers with poison arrows, then h - Polidicks

[url]http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-content/photos/000/807/cache/80758_990x742-cb1402945829.jpg[/url] [url]https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t31.0-8/q77/s720x720/10344262_459388834164329_4000034021727138882_o.jpg[/url] [quote] One of Kenya's most adored elephants, who had giant tusks and was known as Satao, has been killed for his ivory—a "monumental" loss, experts say. Poachers shot the bull elephant with a poisoned arrow in Tsavo East National Park, waited for him to die a painful death, and hacked off his face to remove his ivory, according to the Tsavo Trust, an area nonprofit that works with wildlife and local communities. Satao was particularly appealing to poachers as a tusker, a type of male elephant with a genetic makeup that produces unusually large tusks. "Kenya as a country contains probably the last remaining big tuskers in the world," said Paula Kahumbu, a Kenya-based wildlife conservationist with the nonprofit WildlifeDirect. (Read Kahumbu's essay on Satao's death in the Guardian.) "To lose an animal like Satao is a massive loss to Kenya. He was a major tourist attraction to that part of Tsavo," said Kahumbu, who was a 2011 National Geographic Emerging Explorer. The elephant was killed May 30, but members of the trust announced his death on June 13, after verifying the carcass's identity. (Related: "Efforts to Curb Ivory Trafficking Spreading, but Killing Continues.") "It is with enormous regret that we confirm there is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher's poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far-off countries," the Tsavo Trust said in a statement. "A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece." Satao died despite his high profile, which brought special protection. "It's also a reflection on the situation in Kenya that even in a place where all efforts are made to protect the elephants, it's still very difficult to protect them," Kahumbu said. (Watch video: "Elephants in Crisis.") For the past 18 months, the Tsavo Trust and the Kenya Wildlife Service have been monitoring Satao's movements by air and on foot. "When he was alive, his enormous tusks were easily identifiable, even from the air," according to the Tsavo Trust. Satao generally kept to a predictably small area with four other bull elephants. But in search of food following big rains, he had recently moved into a boundary of the park that's a known poaching hot spot, especially for hunters with poisoned arrows. (Also see: "Poachers Slaughter Dozens of Elephants in Key African Park.") Authorities noticed this and protection efforts were stepped up, but the area Satao entered "is a massive and hostile expanse for any single anti-poaching unit to cover, at least one thousand square kilometers [about 390 square miles] in size," according to the Tsavo Trust. "Understaffed and with inadequate resources given the scale of the challenge, [Kenya Wildlife Service] ground units have a massive uphill struggle to protect wildlife in this area." Poaching's Toll About 472,000 to 690,000 African elephants likely roam the continent today, down from possibly five million in the 1930s and 1940s. The animals are classified as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Conservationists estimate that 30,000 to 38,000 elephants are poached annually for their ivory, which is shuttled out of West African and, increasingly, East African seaports en route mainly to China and other Asian consumer countries such as Thailand. (See a graphic of elephant poaching in Africa.) The whereabouts of Satao's tusks are unknown, but Kahumbu said that they are likely on their way to being exported. "What worries me is we're seeing increasing amounts of ivory moving through Kenya, and it's a real indicator of the corruption," she said.[/quote] [url]http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...nt&sf3321741=1[/url] Can we please poach these poachers instead

Couldn't you have put the NSFW thread image or put NSFW in the title? That's pretty fucked up looking.

There should be guards protecting elephants like they do with rhinos [IMG]http://vni.s3.amazonaws.com/140114073455570.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for nsfw images why you can't just link them.

They need drones that shoot poachers

Do they not have armed patrols in these areas? Or recon? Fly a helicopter with IR overhead once in a while, hell, appeal for international aid, I know there are groups that would throw money at that cause. What a fucking loss.

[QUOTE=Feroaffer;45128294]There should be guards protecting elephants like they do with rhinos[/QUOTE] This could be dangerous for the guards. What if the elephant starts charging at them or something? [QUOTE=mattmanlex;45128304]Thanks for nsfw images why you can't just link them.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Trekintosh;45128287]Couldn't you have put the NSFW thread image or put NSFW in the title? That's pretty fucked up looking.[/QUOTE] Pansies.

[QUOTE=Feroaffer;45128294]There should be guards protecting elephants like they do with rhinos [IMG]http://vni.s3.amazonaws.com/140114073455570.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] No one fucks with President Rhino.

Maybe someone should invent a way to grow tusks and other ivory in a lab like we're trying to do with organs and meat.

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;45128287]Couldn't you have put the NSFW thread image or put NSFW in the title? That's pretty fucked up looking.[/QUOTE] Well I thought from the title its was a little obvious. Done anyways.

[QUOTE=uzikus;45128328]This could be dangerous for the guards. What if the elephant starts charging at them or something?[/QUOTE] I'll admit I'm no expert but I've always assumed that in general elephants are pretty chill as long as you don't fuck with them.

Ass Tusks?

[QUOTE=MuTAnT;45128358]I'll admit I'm no expert but I've always assumed that in general elephants are pretty chill as long as you don't fuck with them.[/QUOTE] They are but sometimes they're unpredictable. They could charge you for no reason.

Is there a way to link the ivory with the corpse? (DNA or some shit.. I don't know how ivory works.) So that if/when the ivory surfaces, the 'owner' can be asked where they got it from? Fined? Publicly shamed for supporting crimes against the planet?

[QUOTE=tirpider;45128378]Is there a way to link the ivory with the corpse? (DNA or some shit.. I don't know how ivory works.) So that if/when the ivory surfaces, the 'owner' can be asked where they got it from? Fined? Publicly shamed for supporting crimes against the planet?[/QUOTE] i wouldn't have any problem if people who were found to have poached ivory got a hefty fine, the ivory confiscated, and were made to "donate" a large sum of cash to the reserves and preservation campaigns

I've heard of elephants mutating to be born without tusks, wonder if that's going to generalize until elephants no longer have tusks so they're no longer worth anything to poachers.

Fuck poachers. Scum of the fucking earth.

I've never understood how you can do this to another living thing. I even feel bad when I step on small insects.

What do they even do with Ivory in this day and age? Medicine? Decoration? Takes a pretty shit person to be on the demand side of this trade. Should be equal hate for them as for the poachers. They're the ones making it lucrative.

[QUOTE=OvB;45128654]What do they even do with Ivory in this day and age? Medicine? Decoration? Takes a pretty shit person to be on the demand side of this trade. Should be equal hate for them as for the poachers. They're the ones making it lucrative.[/QUOTE] Unsure about medicine, but it is mostly used in decorative things afaik.

[QUOTE=OvB;45128654]What do they even do with Ivory in this day and age? Medicine? Decoration? Takes a pretty shit person to be on the demand side of this trade. Should be equal hate for them as for the poachers. They're the ones making it lucrative.[/QUOTE] Elephant ivory is for decoration. Rhino horns are grinded into dust because somewhere in Asia people still believe it has aphrodasiac properties.

Funny enough, female elephants are actually starting to choose tuskless males because of this shit. It's a shame because they need tusks to defend, dig for water and roots. Elephants see us as a greater threat to their survival than the need to eat

You might wanna edit that url: [url]http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/06/140616-elephants-tusker-satao-poachers-killed-animals-africa-science/[/url]

Worth mentioning that a lot of the guards hired to protect wildlife are paid on promises by naive, shambolic Western "animal lovers" and advertising personalities who set up preserves and essentially run a private business on first-world donations to protect charismatic megafauna like elephants while people around them starve. A lot of those guards never get paid on time and are doing it out of their own goodness, which runs out. And when you're surviving by the skin of your teeth and you have a family to feed, you do the math.

[QUOTE=Feroaffer;45128294]There should be guards protecting elephants like they do with rhinos [IMG]http://vni.s3.amazonaws.com/140114073455570.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] that looks kinda dangerous aren't rhinos known for charging or am i wrong [editline]17th June 2014[/editline] also how the heck do you hack off the face of an elephant their skin and bones and such are probably really tough to cut through

[QUOTE=Reshy;45128347]Maybe someone should invent a way to grow tusks and other ivory in a lab like we're trying to do with organs and meat.[/QUOTE] Then they'd lose all their value and the poachers would move to another profitable animal.

I think we should just make it completely legal to kill poachers on sight. They do not give two shits about the animals they're killing and are only in this business to make a profit. They do not care at all. [QUOTE=Reshy;45128347]Maybe someone should invent a way to grow tusks and other ivory in a lab like we're trying to do with organs and meat.[/QUOTE] That wouldn't help, considering that would only divide up the market. One for the lab-grown stuff, and another for the real stuff. If the artificial stuff became popular, that would only make authentic ivory more valuable. That would create an even bigger problem. Just look at faux leather/pleather and fake fur. They exist, but genuine leather and real animal furs are still in demand and are still as pricey as ever.

Poachers wouldn't exist if the people in the country had decent living conditions.

[QUOTE=Lurker;45129499]Poachers wouldn't exist if the people in the country had decent living conditions.[/QUOTE] Poachers wouldn't exist if the demand for tusks/horns/furs/skins/etc (through any means necessary) wasn't popularized beforehand (the desire for something is what gives an object value, just look at gold for example. Because of our artificial value placed on it, just an ounce of it is worth a few thousand dollars). The living conditions of the people in proximity to these animals only adds to the problem, and isn't the source of it. Or maybe they still would, because if people didn't care about ivory, then they'd probably go hunting the elephants for meat instead.

[QUOTE=Lurker;45129499]Poachers wouldn't exist if the people in the country had decent living conditions.[/QUOTE] Businessmen wouldn't tax evade if they could afford their houses Drug dealers would stop if they got another job Counterfeiters would stop if the authentic product was cheaper Some people are just inherently greedy