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James Tyrrell

Alumni

James had hardly touched a camera when he came to Londolozi, but his writing skills that complemented his Honours degree in Zoology meant that he was quickly snapped up by the Londolozi blog team. An environment rich in photographers helped him develop the ...

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8 Comments

on Celebrating World Elephant Day

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It is so true James. Knoweldge is a powerful tool. We have to create awareness around poaching and education is key. I jlread an article about a week ago that the private concessions in northren Botswana are targeted and that 48 elephant carcasses were found in one day. We all need to try and do our bit before it is too late for these iconic species.

I love elephants and am happy to hear the population is growing.

I’m there! Looks like I can visit finally in mid-November and look forward to many animal sightings.

I’ve been a contributor to rhino and elephant organizations and hope that continued education and media coverage will insure their survival.

Master Tracker

It’s only five years or so since people were saying there were too many Ellies in the Kruger and they should be culled. Let’s not forget there are powerful people very much allied to the hunting industry and wanting to relax the CITES controls.

Senior Digital Ranger

I heard earlier this week that even the elephant safe zone that is Botswana is considering allowing controlled elephant hunting as they’ve determined elephant numbers have simply risen to unsustainable levels. Serious question I’ve often wondered about. Is there a process or organization available to parks and countries that conclude elephant numbers are over saturated that puts forth the effort and financing to explore relocation of elephants to less saturated environs? I understand the complications of splitting up matriarchal family groups, and concerns about relocating to locales more vulnerable to poaching, but if the that’s the only alternative to the certain culling or hunting of designated elephants, I wonder what on the ground decision makers would consider the more morale action. Another morale conundrum I’ve wondered about is relocating African elephants to Asian National Park’s where Asiatic elephants once roamed, but have since gone extinct…the morale conundrum here being introduction of another species of elephant unnaturally into a different environment, but again I ask if the only alternative is death by culling or hunting, might it not be more moral to violate certain principles as John Varty has done with his tiger Park in South Africa? Just things I have often been curious about from afar.

I so enjoy reading about ellies as in “The Elephant Whisperer” by Lawrence Anthony. What an eye-opener that book is! I am, however, very cautious with these magnificent creatures and am not happy being close to them on a game drive. I can watch them for hours – at a fair distance …. especially when they are playing in water. This is delightful to watch! So glad their numbers are slowly coming up in certain areas. Education of children is vital regarding all wild life and my hat off to people who are involved here. Wendy M

Personally I’ve had a love affair with elephants most of my life. It’s really continued to bother me when hearing the numbers dwindle, while poaching continues. When you mentioned, James, that 100 elephants are killed daily I gasped out loud and my heart renched. There needs to be a clarion call worldwide that needs answered and be put into some type of positive active action. I will share your post and if you will tell me how and where to adopt a calf in a elephant orphanage, I will.

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