Drought, Poaching Kill 100 Elephants In Kenya

APReport ^ | September 09, 2009

[Steelfish]

Drought, Poaching Kill 100 Elephants In Kenya

Threatened animals draw 1 million tourists each year to country's savannah

Pornchai Kittiwongsakul / AFP-Getty Images Thai custom officials on Aug. 21 display elephant tusks confiscated at Bangkok airport. The 1,700 pounds of tusks, worth more than $500,000, were found on a flight that had arrived from Kenya and Uganda.

The wildlife trade is the third-largest illegal trade in the world after guns and drugs. Learn who is buying and selling and see the species put at risk by the trade.

Sept . 9, 2009 NAIROBI, Kenya - Poaching and drought-related hunger have killed more than 100 of Kenya's famous elephants in the north of the country so far this year, conservationists say.

Zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton, who founded Save the Elephants, said the drought is Kenya's worst in 12 years. The dry conditions pose a serious threat to the large and majestic animals, whose striking silhouettes across Kenya's broad savannah draw around 1 million tourists each year.

"When (elephants) do not have enough food they also seem to be vulnerable to disease, their immune system weakens and they catch all sorts of diseases," Douglas-Hamilton said Monday. "Elephants, particularly the young and the old, have begun to die."

[albie]

Obama used to ride some of these elephants when he was a boy. ~sniff

[highnoon]

I’ve always disliked poached elephant....too runny. I prefer mine deep fried.

[caver]

I have never tried to hide an elephant tusk in my luggage.