Professor Pringle said it was possible to reverse this trait over time as long as work to recover elephant populations from the brink of extinction continues. That's just something to think about and consider really because it's absolutely RIDICULOUS that any animal should have to go through that. In 2012 as many as a hundred Sudanese and Chadian poachers on horseback rode across central Africa into Cameroons Bouba Ndjidah National Park. Ivory poachers are killing some 22,000 African elephants a year. Do we really need to sell ivory tusks in the world just to make money? 'Everybody out, everybody out.' November 6, 1954, Page 3 Buy Reprints. The family of Idriss Adoum (second from left) tracked one suspect to Sudan. Poachers killed at least 132 last year, and as of this June, rangers had discovered another 42 carcasses with bullet holes, more than 30 attributed to a single Sudanese poaching expeditiona combined loss amounting to more than 10 percent of the parks entire population of elephants, estimated now to be no more than about 1,500. The Radio Expeditions series (1992-2007) was a joint production of NPR and the National Geographic Society. As Somalia is to piracy, Sudan has become to elephant poaching. At least 26 elephants were massacred at the Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic in the spring of 2013. But in central Africa, as I learned firsthand, something more sinister is driving the killing: Militias and terrorist groups funded in part by ivory are poaching elephants, often outside their home countries, and even hiding inside national parks. When north and south Sudan signed a peace agreement in 2005, Kony lost his Sudanese host. Now its under siege for its ivory, mainly by rogue soldiers from national armies and by the terrorist group the Lords Resistance Army (LRA). So we Bill McQuay and Chris Joyce, who've worked together on stories from the mountains of China to the copper mines of Michigan recently decided to go see Turkalo and find out what happened. Andrea Turkalo looks through a scope in 2002 from the observation platform she built along the edge of the bai. a. percentage of elephants killed . And someoneits unclear whois believed to be killing elephants from helicopters, as evidenced by bullet holes in the tops of skulls and the removal of tusks by what can only be chain saws. This shift might be due to random chance or inbreeding after a population goes through a bottleneck. It was still too dangerous, Turkalo decided, so she made her escape by boat a second time. The result was. I know which house theyre in: Using Google Earth, I see its light-blue roof on my screen. Turkalo is compact and direct, and wears her dark hair pulled back in a bun. Those looking at the tusks think Im an ivory trafficker. But seeing it in front of you, and knowing those individuals are related, that makes my day. CAMPBELL-STATON: But then I realized that there wasn't actually a lot of empirical data about what the response was from, you know, what the genetic basis of the trait was. It consists of a battery capable of lasting more than a year, a GPS receiver, an Iridium satellite transceiver, and a temperature sensor. Which raises the question: If ivory is poached by Sudanese, where is it going? I make a mental note that Konys soldiers and other armed groups walk hundreds of miles from Sudan into this endless grass curtain to kill elephants. Garamba National Park, in the northeast corner of the DRC and on the border with South Sudan, is a UNESCO World Heritage site, internationally famous for its elephants and its boundless ocean of green. Thanks to stepped-up enforcement, the park hasnt lost an elephant to poachers since 2012. National Geographic needs your help to protect elephants and to continue reporting on wildlife crime. Gorongosa - that's a national park in Mozambique. Show your work. Written in Acholi, it details Konys order for a hundred elephant tusks. A female forest elephant charges, in Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve in the Central African Republic. Where did the tusks end up? Garamba is a crucible within a crucible, a park under siege in a country often in civil war in a region that has nearly forgotten peace. Once the war and poaching ended, elephants with tusks were more likely to survive because they could use their tusks to find water and food. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Most illegal ivory goes to China, where a pair of ivory chopsticks can bring more than a thousand dollars and carved tusks sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their lack of tusks was thought to be a consequence of another human creationthe Mozambican civil war, which lasted from 1977 to 1992 and was partly paid for by the killing of elephants for . They have flashbacks. Issa claimed he was merely a lookout, not a poacher. Theyre in a place 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the ambient temperature, so perhaps theyve been buried in the backyard. 5. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), a treaty organization that governs international trade in ivoryand its continuing banhas identified eight countries of primary concern when it comes to international ivory trafficking: China, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, Tanzania, and Vietnam. The rangers on Heban hill had little reason to be concerned for their safety. Villagers sometimes taunt returned children with the same expression used for Konys men: LRA Tongo Tongo. LRA Cut Cuta reference, Sugule explains, to the militants vicious use ofmachetes. He points a finger at me, and yells, You are a liar, bwana! (Bwana is Swahili for sir.). Today, poaching has stopped in Gorongosa, and the elephant population is recovering. In Songo the tusks are held for three days in what looks like a clearing outside town. In the criminal world, ivory operates as currency, so in a way Im asking Dante to print counterfeit money I canfollow. 4. Issa, who is Chadian, said he joined the team of three Sudanese men and that together they rode more than two weeks to get to Heban, where they killed nine elephants in four days. I know that ivory tusks make millions of pounds but is it really worth it? Tongo Tongo shot two elephants one day, she says. Five of the six men in Zakoumas Hippotrague patrol unit were killed by elephant poachers outside the park; the sixth is presumed dead. During a civil war in the country, that lasted from 1977 to 1992, up to 90% of Mozambique's elephant population was killed, mainly for their ivory tusks. The U.S. State Department named Kony a specially designated global terrorist in 2008, and the African Union has designated the LRA a terrorist organization. Forest elephants linger on a misty morning at the Dzanga bai. After three weeks the tusks turn north again, back into Sudan. Kony was adamant in his radio transmissions. When humans hunt, they can cause their quarry to evolve by targeting individuals with particular traits, like big fish or sheep with hefty horns. Money is available to outfit the rangers with better equipment, but buying new weapons requires formal approval of the Congolese army, something Froment has been unable to get. When he shows up, he picks up a tusk and runs his finger over the butt end. At the same time, the apartheid government and the Smith regime lost Portugal as an ally and with it the tens of thousands of soldiers that had been deployed in the Portuguese colonial wars. Researchers have long suspected that the tuskless trait, only seen in females, was linked to the sex of the elephant. Konys force has declined from a peak of 2,700 combatants in 1999 to an estimated 150 to 250 core fighters today. The soldiers killed the elephants. Year after year, the path to many of the biggest, most horrific elephant killings traces back to Sudan, which has no elephants left but gives comfort to foreign-born poacher-terrorists and is home to the janjaweed and other Sudanese cross-continental marauders. The park has lost all its rhinos to poaching for their horns. It was the rainy season, and the rangers, like the elephants they were guarding, had left the park for higher ground. Once the war and poaching ended,elephants with tusks were more likely to survive because they could use their tusks to find . In 2009 Bashir became the worlds first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Katy Payne/The Elephant Listening Project, Former Commando Turns Conservationist To Save Elephants Of Dzanga Bai. It was supposed to be a short posting, but he saw too much death to leave. Konys response was immediate and savage. Konys army had arrived in Garamba in 2006 with little ammunition left to continue its war, Onen tells me. "They recognize each other's voices," she told us in 2002, "just like women recognize their babies' cries. A small proportion of females . Veteran ranger Jean Claude Mambo Marindo sits beside almost a hundred tusks seized from elephant poachers at Garamba National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We protect the elephant to protect the park. (Special thanks to the National Public Radio - National Geographic Society Radio Expeditions Sound Collection at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for sharing the audio.). All of central Africa is a hand grenade, its pin pulled by a history of resource exploitation from abroad, dictatorships, and poverty. It was just impossible to stay. When ivory poachers target elephants, the hunters can affect more than just animal numbers. Under poaching pressure, elephants are evolving to lose their tusks Elephants with a rare "tuskless" genetic trait had a better chance of surviving Mozambique's long civil war, financed in. They included South Sudanese armed forces (SPLA) and Sudanese military, as well as defectors from those militaries and an assortment of Sudan-based rebels. I need Schreger lines too, George, I say, referring to the cross-hatching on the butt of a sawn tusk that looks like growth rings of a tree trunk. Between April 25 and June 17, poachers killed two Garamba rangers and two army officers assisting with patrols. They found that the tuskless trait was genetic, found in the X chromosome, and it was deadly in males. Sugule is the founder of a group that provides assistance to victims of Konys army. For example, tuskless motherswho would have had one copy of the dominant tuskless gene, from their own mothershad the same number of daughters with and without tusks. In ten years hes never made a mistake, he says: The tusks are real. "We were all women five women." "I can never get too emotionally attached to things there," she says of central Africa, "because otherwise you set yourself up for a lot of disappointment. He asks for water for me and is led out of the building. FANIE PELLETIER: It's one of the most detailed example of how human activity can influence the genes of a population. It is assumed that the girls were raped, so its difficult for them to find husbands. This project was made possible by a grant from The WoodtigerFund. This ideathat an animal's perception of danger . "But I'm certain I knew a few of the elephants they killed," she says including some that the NPR team had recorded. Rogue militias and army soldiers from the DRC, Sudan, and South Sudan are slaughtering elephants in the park. Boko Haram also uses the bush as a baseNigerias Sambisa Forest, a game reserve south of Lake Chad. Tusklessness, according to a new paper in Science, can be attributed in large part to a dominant mutation on the X chromosome a genetic change that also explains the sex skew Poole saw. They all report to him, they all obey him. In Zimbabwe, a recent survey shows massive losses in some parks. As we talk over my design needs, Dantes brown eyes sparkle like a boys on Christmas morning. That members of the Sudanese military trade arms for ivory with the LRA raises questions about the highest levels of Sudans government. RENAMO also had imposed a system it called Gamdira whereby villagers were required to produce food, transport goods and ammunition, and village women were forced to be sex slaves. "We gave them a little money and said the Seleka were coming," says Turkalo. "As a result there were large numbers of soldiers in the area and a lot of associated. Locals, including poor villagers and unpaid park rangers, are killing elephants for casha risk theyre willing to take because even if theyre caught, the penalties are often negligible. Among the recent casualties was a group of rare forest elephants in the Central African Republic. She had gone to Africa to do aid work, but was drawn to the intricate lives of these elephants. But a new study suggests there is a serious reason for why lots of tuskless elephants can now be found in the country of Mozambique in Africa - poaching. Your tax-deductible contribution plays a critical role in sustaining this effort. For the man, the White elephant represents some component that is extra of a burden, even though it is a blessing, it is then again unwanted. In May 2013 Seleka-backed Sudanese poachers attacked Dzanga Bai, an elephant oasis in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park of southwest CAR, killing 26 elephants. "I don't know which ones they killed," she replies. Instead of being made a soldier, he was designated a signalera radioman privy to Konys secret communications. Meanwhile, flouting the cease-fire, his men crossed into CAR, where they kidnapped hundreds of children and made sex slaves of women they brought back to the park. CORNISH: Campbell-Staton had heard all of this before. For Konys men: LRA Tongo Tongo expression used for Konys men: LRA Tongo.... Of NPR and the elephant population is recovering the sex of the Sudanese military trade arms for with. Across Central Africa into Cameroons Bouba Ndjidah National park in Mozambique world just to make money the observation she... 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