Ivory-seeking poachers have killed 100,000 African elephants in just three years, according to a new study that provides the first reliable continent-wide estimates of illegal kills. During 2011 alone, roughly one of every twelve African elephants was killed by a poacher.
Up to 30,000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks; that’s one every 15 minutes, a rate that populations cannot sustain.
An increasing number of African elephants are now born tuskless because poachers have consistently targeted animals with the best ivory over decades, fundamentally altering the gene pool.
As Independent Reports that almost a third of Africa’s elephants have been illegally slaughtered by poachers in the past ten years to meet demand for ivory in Asia, where there is still a booming trade in the material, particularly in China.
In some areas 98 per cent of female elephants now have no tusks, researchers have said, compared to between two and six per cent born tuskless on average in the past.
And the problem isn't getting better. Poaching has been on the rise since 2007. Approximately 144,000 elephants were killed between 2007 and 2014. Over the past decade, nearly a third of African elephants were killed by poachers. That's left African elephants facing extinction and in a tough place, evolution-wise. While being born tuskless protects them from poachers, it's dangerous in other ways. Elephants need their tusks for self-defense, sexual display, and digging for food and water. Without them, they're considered "crippled"—more likely to be malnourished and susceptible to disease. Sadly, researchers say the entire species could soon be tuskless if something isn't done.
In 2008, scientists found that even among elephants that remained tusked, the tusks were smaller than in elephants' a century before – roughly half their previous size.
“Conservationists say an elephant without tusks
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