photos © Kyle Dickman

text courtesy of EP and Under Solen Media

Epicocity Project is known for paddling some of the world’s most endangered rivers to promote conservation. But last week they kicked off an expedition on dry land - The Elephant Ivory Project - a project aimed to save wild elephants from the illegal ivory trade.

This fall, the explorers will team up the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington to collect DNA samples from elephants in the remote African jungle. These samples will help to complete a DNA map of illegal ivory poaching hotspots. With this data, scientists can pinpoint where illegal ivory is coming from and send resources to stop it in those areas. For that expedition, the Epicocity crew is venturing to a country considered too dangerous and remote for scientists to travel - the Democratic of Congo.

But before they make that trip, the team needs to research where the illegal ivory is being sold… And that’s why they’re exploring Thailand.

“Day one in Bangkok and I’ve already been offered ivory,” team-member Trip Jennings said.

The EP team is in the epicenter of it all. Bangkok has the largest ivory market in Asia - with most of that ivory coming from African elephants. Just few days in Bangkok and they can see that the ivory trade is booming. Poachers kill elephants at a rate of 10 percent per year. With just 470,000 elephants left in the world, it means that in just a few years wild elephant populations will disappear.

The EP team is determined to stop that from happening. But in order to be successful, they have to know what they’re up against - and that means researching the ivory trade in Bangkok and talking to the folks who are leading the conservation effort… And of course meeting some elephants.

To find elephants, they drove into the country and met a man taking his elephants out into the forest to eat. He let them take a ride.

“Elephants are amazing creatures - intelligent, gentle and powerful. It’s heartbreaking to know that poachers kill more than 100 elephants every day,” team-member Andy Maser said. “But it’s not hopeless. Twenty years ago, with a global upwelling of support, the ivory trade was stopped, nearly overnight. We can do that again.”

So, what can you do?

1. Support the Elephant Ivory Project. 100% of your donation will go directly to the expedition and it’s 100% tax-deductible. Let’s save some elephants!
2. Visit www.elephantivoryproject.org to learn more. Knowledge is power. Poachers kill more than 100 elephants every day. It doesn’t have to be that way. Pass it on!
3. Don’t buy ivory! The U.S. has the 2nd highest demand for ivory. Think about it

Read more stories from the field on the Elephant Ivory Project blog!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 10:43 am and is filed under Environmental, Team News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.