7 ms·

Elephant decline revealed by shipwreck cargo

152 points by Thevet 6y ago

adamnemecek 6y ago
You guys should consider donating to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[0][1] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans. For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor this little fella [2][3]. There is also the the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[4][5] which fights poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[6] is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed. [0] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust [2] https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/murit https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/murit [3] http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb [4] http://www.iapf.org/ http://www.iapf.org/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander
- elefanten 6y ago
  Another key vector is to reduce demand for ivory. The world needs to pressure the government of China, which drives demand and global ivory prices. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09993-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09993-2
  - tcbawo 6y ago
    Has synthetic ivory gotten good enough to replace the natural source? Is it too expensive? Too easily distinguished? Demand too great?
    - blodorn 6y ago
      One way to check for real v fake ivory is to heat a pin in a lighter and then try and poke a little hole. Real ivory doesn't melt at all, and a lot of imitation ivory does, and that is a very easy and expedient test.
      - ekanes 6y ago
        Thank you. Ideally we can blur the lines between these two, so that the price for one is ruined because they can't be distinguished.
    - 6nf 6y ago
      Mammoth ivory is actually not as expensive as you might expect, that’s about as good as you can get
    - sgt101 6y ago
      What is it for? The only application that I know of is to make trinkets and baubles. The desire for that kind of thing is a good test to separate humans from animals.
  - porpoise 6y ago
    China banned all ivory trade at the end of 2017 and by all accounts (see WWF and NG sources cited in the tweet) it's been working quite well. https://www.twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1339782810630987776 https://www.twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/13397828106309...
    - hetspookjee 6y ago
      Yet the paper you reply to is written in sep 2019 and states that the Chinese market is still a massive influence. Don't you think that outweighs your tweet from 2018 from some guy?
      - porpoise 6y ago
        The reports I linked to argue that (i) demand has been significantly reduced. The paper I replied to argues that (ii) a reduction of demand is significantly correlated with a reduction of poaching. Not only is there no "outweighing" of the former by the latter, but the former depends for its point on the latter (i.e. there is no reason to care if (i) is true unless (ii) is true). The tweet is from this month. The NG article is from 2018, but the WWF article postdates the Nature article.
        redis_mlc 6y ago
        I read the linked tweets, and found them pretty vague. Ivory powder is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), so it's more likely than not that China won't stop killing elephants (or rhinos.) Additionally, exotic TCM ingredients are considered to be a status symbol, so price is no object. In addition, there's a new development. The CCP is intruding into Asian and African countries using Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a pretext, and even positioning armies there. This could well accelerate poaching. I think you mean well, but consider the source of your information before being argumentative.
- bitwize 6y ago
  The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is where wild elephants go to seek medical attention because they know there are helpful humans there. If you want to help the elephants and don't know whom to donate to, consider the conservation foundation trusted by the elephants themselves.
- raunakdag 6y ago
  I was really excited to sponsor the actual elephant you linked in 2/3, until I realized it was pictures from 2014 :( I’ll have to find another cute one now, I suppose.
- deepzn 6y ago
  wow this is super cool, will be considering doing this...
- iridium_core 6y ago
  Population of Africa in 1500: 46 million in 1913: 127 million in 1998: 760 million by 2100: 4.3 billion "You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF's money on buying condoms." Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wildlife Fund
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
garmaine 6y ago
Can these elephants be cloned to inject diversity into existing hurds?
jeffbee 6y ago
It's a bit ironic that this evidence of past ecological crimes was unearthed by a current ecological crime: strip mining the sea floor for diamonds.
graderjs 6y ago
Why are people so terrible... How could they kill all these animals. Why are we such an insane and violent species.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Almost everyone here is down with killing animals for minutes of taste bud pleasure, so it's debatable whether it's morally worse to harvest ivory to build something that lasts much longer (like keys on a piano) than minutes of taste bud pleasure. Most of us are completely on board with making animals suffer by the billions while exploiting them. Usually this very post will summon people who are actually proud of it.
  - bitexploder 6y ago
    I think it’s more than taste bud pleasure. Animals are an easy source of protein with a complete amino acid profile. It takes real effort to learn how to eat a vegetarian diet (even one that incorporates eggs and dairy). Excluding eggs and dairy increases the difficulty even further. I’m not ready to be so pithy about it. And I have gone on extended vegan and vegetarian dieting phases due to ethical concerns. It’s hard.
    - ornornor 6y ago
      > It’s hard. It requires some effort, sure. But it has to be weighed against the suffering and killing and polluting that not doing it is responsible for. Looking after children is hard. Studying is hard. Working for 40 years is hard. And yet we manage all these.
    - cute_boi 6y ago
      actually its not hard but the current demand of meat etc makes it hard. Go to supermarket around half of food is non vegan. And its hard to convince parents if children wants to become vegan because they think they may not get enough nutrition. And on another hand meat and dairy industry try to hide everything using marketing strategy like drink milk to become strong, McDonald food are high quality and rich people eats there etc. Its just like palm oil which has become ubiquitous before 5 years we could avoid that now its hard.
29athrowaway 6y ago
In the past, ivory was used to make: - pool and billiard balls. - piano keys. - handles.
deepzn 6y ago
super interesting find...(quite literally) elephants are beautiful creatures, and amazing, majestic ones too. Please stop killing them for ivory.
graderjs 6y ago
This is good to know, and this history and reactions to it are pretty various.

152 points by Thevet 6y ago

You guys should consider donating to David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[0][1] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans. For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular animal and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored animal is doing. You can for example sponsor this little fella [2][3]. There is also the the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[4][5] which fights poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[6] is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed. [0] http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust [2] https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/murit https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans/murit [3] http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb http://instagram.com/p/sigT3IAUKb [4] http://www.iapf.org/ http://www.iapf.org/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander

elefanten 6y ago
Another key vector is to reduce demand for ivory. The world needs to pressure the government of China, which drives demand and global ivory prices. [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09993-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09993-2
- tcbawo 6y ago
  Has synthetic ivory gotten good enough to replace the natural source? Is it too expensive? Too easily distinguished? Demand too great?
  - blodorn 6y ago
    One way to check for real v fake ivory is to heat a pin in a lighter and then try and poke a little hole. Real ivory doesn't melt at all, and a lot of imitation ivory does, and that is a very easy and expedient test.
    - ekanes 6y ago
      Thank you. Ideally we can blur the lines between these two, so that the price for one is ruined because they can't be distinguished.
  - 6nf 6y ago
    Mammoth ivory is actually not as expensive as you might expect, that’s about as good as you can get
  - sgt101 6y ago
    What is it for? The only application that I know of is to make trinkets and baubles. The desire for that kind of thing is a good test to separate humans from animals.
- porpoise 6y ago
  China banned all ivory trade at the end of 2017 and by all accounts (see WWF and NG sources cited in the tweet) it's been working quite well. https://www.twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1339782810630987776 https://www.twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/13397828106309...
  - hetspookjee 6y ago
    Yet the paper you reply to is written in sep 2019 and states that the Chinese market is still a massive influence. Don't you think that outweighs your tweet from 2018 from some guy?
    - porpoise 6y ago
      The reports I linked to argue that (i) demand has been significantly reduced. The paper I replied to argues that (ii) a reduction of demand is significantly correlated with a reduction of poaching. Not only is there no "outweighing" of the former by the latter, but the former depends for its point on the latter (i.e. there is no reason to care if (i) is true unless (ii) is true). The tweet is from this month. The NG article is from 2018, but the WWF article postdates the Nature article.
      - redis_mlc 6y ago
        I read the linked tweets, and found them pretty vague. Ivory powder is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), so it's more likely than not that China won't stop killing elephants (or rhinos.) Additionally, exotic TCM ingredients are considered to be a status symbol, so price is no object. In addition, there's a new development. The CCP is intruding into Asian and African countries using Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a pretext, and even positioning armies there. This could well accelerate poaching. I think you mean well, but consider the source of your information before being argumentative.
bitwize 6y ago
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is where wild elephants go to seek medical attention because they know there are helpful humans there. If you want to help the elephants and don't know whom to donate to, consider the conservation foundation trusted by the elephants themselves.
raunakdag 6y ago
I was really excited to sponsor the actual elephant you linked in 2/3, until I realized it was pictures from 2014 :( I’ll have to find another cute one now, I suppose.
deepzn 6y ago
wow this is super cool, will be considering doing this...
iridium_core 6y ago
Population of Africa in 1500: 46 million in 1913: 127 million in 1998: 760 million by 2100: 4.3 billion "You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF's money on buying condoms." Sir Peter Scott, founder of the World Wildlife Fund

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

garmaine 6y ago

Can these elephants be cloned to inject diversity into existing hurds?

jeffbee 6y ago

It's a bit ironic that this evidence of past ecological crimes was unearthed by a current ecological crime: strip mining the sea floor for diamonds.

graderjs 6y ago

Why are people so terrible... How could they kill all these animals. Why are we such an insane and violent species.

hombre_fatal 6y ago
Almost everyone here is down with killing animals for minutes of taste bud pleasure, so it's debatable whether it's morally worse to harvest ivory to build something that lasts much longer (like keys on a piano) than minutes of taste bud pleasure. Most of us are completely on board with making animals suffer by the billions while exploiting them. Usually this very post will summon people who are actually proud of it.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  I think it’s more than taste bud pleasure. Animals are an easy source of protein with a complete amino acid profile. It takes real effort to learn how to eat a vegetarian diet (even one that incorporates eggs and dairy). Excluding eggs and dairy increases the difficulty even further. I’m not ready to be so pithy about it. And I have gone on extended vegan and vegetarian dieting phases due to ethical concerns. It’s hard.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    > It’s hard. It requires some effort, sure. But it has to be weighed against the suffering and killing and polluting that not doing it is responsible for. Looking after children is hard. Studying is hard. Working for 40 years is hard. And yet we manage all these.
  - cute_boi 6y ago
    actually its not hard but the current demand of meat etc makes it hard. Go to supermarket around half of food is non vegan. And its hard to convince parents if children wants to become vegan because they think they may not get enough nutrition. And on another hand meat and dairy industry try to hide everything using marketing strategy like drink milk to become strong, McDonald food are high quality and rich people eats there etc. Its just like palm oil which has become ubiquitous before 5 years we could avoid that now its hard.

29athrowaway 6y ago

In the past, ivory was used to make: - pool and billiard balls. - piano keys. - handles.

deepzn 6y ago

super interesting find...(quite literally) elephants are beautiful creatures, and amazing, majestic ones too. Please stop killing them for ivory.

graderjs 6y ago

This is good to know, and this history and reactions to it are pretty various.