If you live in Washington state and would like to do something about preventing further poaching, please vote Yes on Initiative-1401 which will be on the state ballot in this fall [0].<p>Furthermore, anyone can donate for example to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation[1][2] which fights these poachers. The founder, Damien Mander[3], is an Australian ex spec-ops sniper who is using his military experience to train the park rangers since they, unlike the poachers, tend to be poorly equipped and trained as well as understaffed.<p>There is also the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust[4][5] which takes care of elephant and rhino orphans (most of them are orphans due to poaching). For $50 a year, you can become a sponsor of a particular orphan and they'll send you photos and updates about how your sponsored orphan is doing. I've been giving these out as gifts with good successes. You can for example sponsor this little fella [6].<p>[0] <a href="http://saveanimalsfacingextinction.org/" rel="nofollow">http://saveanimalsfacingextinction.org/</a><p>[1] <a href="http://www.iapf.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.iapf.org/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Foundation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Anti-Poaching_Fo...</a><p>[3] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Mander</a><p>[4] <a href="http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org</a><p>[5] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sheldrick_Wildlife_Trust</a><p>[6] <a href="https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.asp?N=337" rel="nofollow">https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphan_profile.as...</a>
Check out the National Geographic article with much more detail: <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/article.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/article.htm...</a><p>There's an interactive map too: <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/map.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nationalgeographic.com/tracking-ivory/map.html</a>
Is there a way of reaching future generations of Chinese effectively? A lot of Chinese antiques are, to my eye, quite gauche. Are they still status symbols for the new, rising middle class?<p>I believe Yao Ming has done some work raising awareness around the ivory trade. Any other revered Chinese celebrities?
A GPS tracker becomes useless if it can't see any satellites; having worked with GPS before and seeing how effective even a thin layer of metal can attenuate the signal significantly, I'm curious as to how they were able to make this work. It seems highly unlikely that someone smuggling a tusk would leave it in clear view of the sky.
Is there an ethical issue with flooding the market with replica ivory? It would at least raise transaction costs and risks for poachers and their supply chains.
While I read the article, I'm currently unable to listen to either the npr or nat geo articles.<p>Could anybody elaborate on how they pass off the fake tusks to the smugglers? Do they, for lack of a better word, install the tusks on the elephants and wait for the elephants to be poached or do they sell the tusks to the smugglers so the smugglers can flip the tusks?
Note the transcript of the interview: <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=431908397" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...</a>