Despite their large size, I’m told that counting polar bears is not easy; that they move around a lot. The modelling is always suggesting population decline, but best estimates indicate polar bear numbers have been increasing since effective bans on hunting were introduced in the early 1970s. Contrast this with the situation in Africa where best estimates indicate more than 100,000 elephants have been slaughtered since 2006. The problem for the elephants is hunting – illegal poaching – which was once such a problem for polar bears.
Rather than worrying about polar bears (and penguins) the special people in Glasgow could be worrying about Africa’s elephants.
I spent some time amongst the elephants of East Africa in the late 1980s when I worked as a field biologist based in Nairobi. During the years I was there the elephant populations in the national parks were decimated by poachers.
Official estimates put Kenya’s total elephant population at 167,000 in 1973, and just 16,000 in 1989. That was when there was major legislative change, rangers were issued with semiautomatic weapons and told to defend the remaining herds. At the same time elephants were listed in Appendix I of CITES with an international commitment to halt the trade in ivory. The slaughter stopped, temporarily.
African elephant populations began to recover. By 2007 there was estimated to be about 470,000 elephants across Africa (savannah and forest).
Then environmental activists became obsessed with climate change to the exclusion of most everything else, and the wholesale price of raw ivory in China tripled and poaching started again. Best estimates indicate the trend of increasing elephant numbers for some yeasr during the 1990s has reversed, and that more than 100,000 African elephants were slaughtered between 2006 and 2015 – for their ivory, for the Chinese.
When I was last in Kenya (18 months before covid), I visited the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust that seeks to make a difference by looking after orphaned baby elephants and being a part of anti-poaching efforts. The feature image, at the top of this blog post, shows me with a baby elephant just outside Nairobi in 2018.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This is very interesting Jennifer and what a pity that the Chinese Communist party hasn’t stopped the import of Ivory products.
There would be few sizable Ivory markets left for these cruel gangs if the CCP were to take strong action on these importations.
Btw Matt Ridley has been looking at the so called science of COVID and Climate Change and has a very pessimistic view about their so called Science over the last 30 + years.
No doubt about it Science has lost the public’s trust and the chorus of clueless elites , L W journalists + extremists, Carpetbaggers and Con Merchants have been yapping their non science for decades and are now centered on the delusional Glasgow clown show for the next couple of weeks.
https://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/how-science-lost-the-public-s-trust/
Many of the Green politicians think we should all be vegan/vegetarian and that herbivorous animals cause climate change so elephants, rhinoceros’s and other large safari animals are not safe and should to be exterminated to meet Green ideals.
Climate activism cares about naught!
My wife would not hear a word against change for a decade or so. She would leave the room if the conversation ventured onto the scam that is climate change.
The straw that broke the camels back with her was Covid. She has seen the opinion for cash that has infested the scientific community with their behavior on the virus & vaccines, & has finally realised that they do lie for advantage, like anyone else.
She has now actually looked at the evidence for global warming, & finally at what the climate-gate emails told us, & agreed it was her disbelief that our scientists could be so corrupted as to barefaced lie about such important questions that prevented her seeing just how bad our science has become. All respect has gone, I doubt she will even believe true science, until she has proved it for herself.
For us trusting souls, more often than not, this is what it takes. Your wife is one very brave lady. And you no doubt are a Saint.