|
PHOTOGRAPH BY WOLFGANG KAEHLER/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
By Rachael Bale, Executive Editor, Animals
We learned this week that 42 wild elephants are being rounded up to be sent abroad, to unidentified buyers who bought them in a Namibian government auction.
We don’t know much about the sales, but Namibian officials told Dina Fine Maron that the elephants would not be sent to China. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicated no one has applied to bring Namibian elephants to the U.S., either.
The issue is causing an uproar among animal advocates and conservationists. Keeping elephants in captivity is increasingly controversial on its own, given how intelligent they are and how far they roam in the wild each day. But taking wild-born elephants into captivity is even more controversial, not only for their loss of freedom but because of the family bonds it can destroy. (I recently learned that elephants can remember the calls of a hundred other elephants!)
Is such a sale even allowed? A few years ago, it was decided at a convention for CITES—the treaty that governs the international trade of wildlife—that elephants in certain southern African countries could be exported only to countries where elephants are (or used to be) found in the wild—unless there’s some kind of conservation benefit that comes from the export. What that means exactly is … well, that’s unclear too.
What we do know is that 37 elephants have been captured so far, including two females who have since given birth. Fifteen will go to a nature reserve in Namibia, leaving 22 destined to be taken abroad. (Twenty more elephants will be captured to fulfill the international purchase orders.) The destinations of the 42 elephants won’t be revealed until the process is complete, a government spokesperson told Maron.
Here’s everything we know at this point. And if you have tips, let us know at [email protected].
|
|
|
|
