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Drought threatens rare desert elephants Jeremy Hance mongabay.com May 21, 2009
The elephants have been observed trekking farther than usual to find sources of water. Save the Elephants warns that juvenile elephants are most in danger, since more mature elephants with longer trunks can reach water even in deep wells. "The elephants are now in a deadly situation as they wait for the rains to begin. Six elephants have died in the last couple of months from causes related to the drought conditions," says Save the Elephants' scientist Jake Wall.
The drought is hurting more than elephants, according to Wall. “The situation is equally dire for the Touareg and Pheul herdsmen who rely on Banzena for their cattle and many cows are now dying each day from lack of water and the soaring temperatures which reach 50 degrees Celsius in the shade,” he explains. “The stench of rotting corpses fills the air and what little water remains is putrid and undrinkable by all standards. The normal peaceful coexistence between the elephants and herdsmen is starting to break-down and giving way to conflict over access to water." Save the Elephants, in partnership with the WILD Foundation and the Mali government, is planning to secure water for the elephants to protect the herd before the rains return, as they usually do in June. However, funds for the project are lacking and the organization is unsure of the water quality. Related articles Huge cache of smuggled ivory represents up to 40 elephants (04/29/2009) On April 25th two men were pursued by wildlife rangers from the Amboseli-Tsavo Game Scouts Association in Tanzania. The men escaped across the border to southern Kenya where they were caught by police, who had been tipped off by the wildlife scouts. The two men’s SUV contained 1,550 lbs (703 kilograms) of elephant tusks, representing a total of up to forty individuals according to the Kenyan Wildlife Service. This is considered the largest seizure in the region since the ivory smuggling boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The ivory is estimated at a value of $750,000 (or 60 million Kenyan shillings). Vanishing forest elephants are the Congo's greatest cultivators (04/09/2009) A new study finds that forest elephants may be responsible for planting more trees in the Congo than any other species or ghenus. Conducting a thorough survey of seed dispersal by forest elephants, Dr. Stephen Blake, formerly of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and now of the Mac Planck Institute for Ornithology, and his team found that forest elephants consume more than 96 species of plant seeds and can carry the seeds as far as 57 kilometers (35 miles) from their parent tree. Forest elephants are a subspecies of the more-widely known African elephant of the continent's great savannas, differing in many ways from their savanna-relations, including in their diet. Chad's elephant population falls by two-thirds in two years (12/11/2008) Civil strife of Chad, a consequence of the calamity in Darfur, is taking a toll on the country's elephant population, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) which has launched an emergency appeal for funds to support conservation efforts in the country. SHARE THIS ARTICLE:
Tags: elephants mammals animals wildlife endangered species saving species from extinction jeremy hance green environment Mali West Africa in-situ conservation drought impact of climate change
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