Treaty members urge Japan to close loophole to ivory trade

Japan has come under more pressure to shut down its ivory market once and for all to combat elephant poaching.

A draft resolution under the Washington Convention targets Japan and European Union members, among others. It labeled Japan's ivory market as "one of the largest in the world" and a loophole for illegal exports to China, widely considered the world's largest ivory market.

The resolution urges all signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), also known as the Washington Convention, to immediately shut down domestic ivory markets.

“All domestic ivory markets, legal or illegal, contribute to poaching,” states the resolution, submitted by nine countries, including Kenya and Nigeria.

The draft was released by the CITES secretariat on Feb. 4 ahead of a meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the convention, to be held in Sri Lanka in May.

Under the CITES, international trade in elephant tusks and other ivory products has been prohibited, in principle, since 1990.

With regard to domestic ivory sales, a resolution urging countries to close markets that contribute to elephant poaching, as well as illegal ivory trading, was approved at the 2016 CITES conference.

Japan maintains that its domestic market is appropriately managed and does not encourage poaching or other illegal activities.

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Wildlife Ministry to take tough action against elephant hunters

The Ministry of Sustainable Development and Wildlife has taken measures to increase the legal punishment for the killing of tuskers.

Minister Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said, officials of the Department of Wildlife and the Attorney General’s Department will meet day after tomorrow to discuss further on the matter.

Four tuskers were killed in the recent past.

According to a senior official of the department, one tusker at Ambanpola was gunned down yesterday.

He added that a team of doctors will be dispatched today, to treat the injured tusker.

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Another tusker shot dead at Karuwalagaswewa

Not many days after the killing of the well-known tusker, the Dala Poottuwa and the arrest of five suspects in this connection; five more suspects were arrested on charges of having shot dead another tusker in Karuwalagaswewa.

Its body was found near the Thabbowa reservoir in Karuwalagaswewa on Wednesday morning.

The Puttalam Wildlife Conservation Department Assistant Director W.M.K.S. Chandraratne said Veterinary Surgeon Chandana Jayasinghe who carried out the postmortem examination had in his report identified the elephant's death was caused by gunshot injuries to its liver and the resultant internal bleeding.

Villagers said the 18-year-old elephant with with its four-foot pair of tusks was not often seen outside the jungle area it inhabited.

The tusks were taken into custody by the wildlife department.

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Storm erupts over dead elephant

SKUKUZA – The carcass of an elephant lying in a pool of its own blood, was found outside Satara Rest Camp in the Kruger National Park early on Tuesday morning.

Some of its intestines were visible, but otherwise there were no signs of predators feasting on it.

The carcass was removed by park officials that hoisted it onto a truck and took into the veld for an autopsy. “This was a difficult task, since the ground was very wet due to the heavy thunderstorm earlier,” says Reynold Thakuli, general manager for media, public relations and stakeholder relations of SANParks.

Yesterday he confirmed that a team of veterinarians could only deduce that the animal had been struck by lightning, since no other possible causes for its death could be found.

While several news sites reassured readers that the elephant had died due to an act of nature, the guesswork on social media ranged from a muti killing to ivory poachers who had been disturbed before being able to remove the tusks, to being the work of predators.

The latter was questioned by commentators who assumed predators would feast on the intestines first, while others alleged that predators do not feed on animals struck by lightning. This phenomenon could not be confirmed, but a local vet conceded that predators might be deterred by a “typical chemical smell” after a lightning strike.

First reports that its genitals had been removed triggered suspicions about a muti killing, while holes that allegedly would confirm a lightning strike were apparently found when vets examined the carcass.

This led to more speculation on a SANParks Facebook group, with a doubting Thomas suggesting that the elephant must have been “lying with its belly up in the air” when struck. He was quickly informed that “lightning enters at the top and heads earthward through the body, possibly splitting along the way, causing multiple exit wounds and burns”.

Lowvelder received information that the elephant had been shot by officials since it was causing problems at the camp. This allegation was denied by Thakuli.

• Elephants killed by lightning are apparently not uncommon. A few websites, including www.roadsideamerica.com, tell that a well-known American circus elephant called Pitt was killed in August 1943 in Montana when a sudden bolt of lightning knocked her down.  It also mentions Norma Jean, a 6 500-pound elephant of the Clark and Walters Circus struck and killed in 1972, with her trainer “knocked 30 feet by the blast”.

In 2008 an elephant owned by the Guruvayur Devaswom temple died after it was struck by lightning in Thrissur (www.thehindu.com) and in May last year, the Express Tribune reported that four elephants were killed by lightning in northern Sri Lanka.

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Pair of elephant tusks seized

Wildlife officials Keerthi Bandarapura and Hasalaka on Tuesday seized a pair of tusks made out of a bone of an elephant from the residence of the Basnayake Nilame of Kandy Kataragama Devalaya, Gemunu Tikri Banda Walisundera.

The wildlife officers found two tusks 2 feet and 7 inches in height and some bones from the Ganegoda Walawwa of the Basnayake Nilame at Butewatta in Thalathuoya.

Following the seizure, a furious Basnayake Nilame allegedly showed the Wildlife officials the permits he holds for tusks and told them that the two feet of tusks which had been bought from a former Basnsayake Nilame.

He asked whether he was not allowed to possess elephant bones.
Basnayake Nilame Wallisundera told the ‘Daily Mirror’ that there are unlicensed Tuskers, young and old, then there are elephant skeletons in houses without licenses.

“Why are Wildlife officials overlooking for them come after me? Is it because I am doing a ‘clean’ job at the Kandy Kataragama Devalaya?,” he asked.

He also told the ‘Daily Mirror’, that he is filing a “Rights petition” as his Human Rights had been violated by these officials.

However, it was reported that the pair of tusks had been seized since the Nilame was not in possession of a licence or any other document to keep the tusks with him. Wildlife officials said it was a punishable offence to keep tusks or bones of an elephant without a valid licence.

They said the tusks were produced in the Kandy Magistrate’s Court the previous evening and the Nilame was ordered to appear in Courts on March 27. He had been released on Wildlife bail.

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Endangered Asian Elephant Found With a Nail Hammered in Its Leg in Sri Lanka

A heart-wrenching video of an injured elephant in in agonizing pain in Sri Lanka recently emerged on social media. The male elephant reportedly collapsed in a puddle of mud near a jungle and was unable to get up.

In the touching footage, rescuers from Kottukachchiya in Sri Lanka are seen comforting the hurt elephant as it lays in the mud. Locals who responded to save the poor animal reportedly discovered that a nail was hammered on one of its legs, according to the Daily Mail.

Concerned villagers tried to ease the elephant’s condition by offering it some fruits to eat. Others cleaned its wounds by washing it with saline water.

It was not reported if poachers had caused the injury to the animal which is typically hunted down in the country for its valuable ivory tusks.

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