The Annihilation of Nature by Gerardo Ceballos

Author:Gerardo Ceballos
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2015-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

Asian elephants are the only elephants that can be easily tamed for work and entertainment. Like their African cousins, they are threatened by fragmentation of habitat—leading to hunting for ivory, meat, and leather—human-elephant conflicts over crop-raiding, and trapping for display in zoos as well as domestication for work in tourism and forestry. This type of idyllic scene in an Indian national park is becoming very rare.

Today, despite international efforts to completely ban the ivory trade, an estimated 75,000 elephants are killed illegally every year for their tusks. Trophy hunters legally kill a few thousand, and those animals bring revenue to many communities and countries. When properly organized, legal hunting of some species is potentially a powerful incentive for conservation, as is controlled hunting in South Africa. And, of course, the ecotourism value to many countries that elephants provide is immense and possibly sustainable.

It would be wonderful if in 2050 some of our descendants could still go to the Okavango Delta and enjoy the spectacles one can see today. In the delta it is possible to observe fifteen to twenty elephants playing in a small lake, submerging and springing up like breeching whales, thrashing the water with their trunks, and pushing young ones up onto their mothers’ backs. Such a sight should be worth infinitely more than 50-yard-line seats at the Super Bowl!

The Asiatic elephant used to be distributed throughout most of Asia, from India and Nepal to the island of Borneo. Unfortunately, habitat destruction, poaching, and trade have severely reduced its populations. Now, they cling to existence in a few protected areas, widely scattered and often isolated from one another.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.