In the next 24 hours, another 100 elephants will have been massacred,and many baby elephants will have become traumatized orphans. Elephants are being killed on an unprecedented scale by semi-automatic weapons, spears, brutal traps, and poisoning. Their tusks are hacked off, sometimes their whole heads are cut off. Wounded elephants are walking around with spears and bullets embedded in their flesh, slowly dying in agonizing pain.
35,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks in 2012 alone.
The rate of poaching is expected to be 30% higher in 2013 which means 45,000 elephants will die this year. That’s one every 12 minutes.
At this rate, elephants will be extinct in less than 5 years.
Many poachers are connected to criminal syndicates that are selling tusks to fund terrorist operations.
Illegal ivory trade is fueled by a huge demand for ivory by an exploding middle class in China. The ivory carving factories process more than 220 tons of elephant tusks every year.