Too many out, not enough in. More elephants are dying in Africa than are being born, thanks to a dramatic rise in poaching.
George Wittemyer of Colorado State University in Fort Collins and his colleagues studied elephant carcasses from Samburu National Reserve in Kenya to determine cause of death, then combined this information with records of elephant poaching across Africa.
They found that since 2009, up to 40,000 elephants – 8 per cent of the total – have been illegally killed each year, and the population has shrunk by up to 3 per cent annually.
"This poaching spike is due to rising demand for ivory from Asia," says Richard Thomas of Traffic International in Cambridge, UK. Thanks to rising wealth, "people are now able to afford ivory, which has long been desired as a status symbol. Deterrents need to be put in place to drive home that wildlife poaching is a serious crime."
Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1403984111
This article will appear in print under the headline "Elephant alert"
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