Poaching is unfortunately still happening in many parts of the Africa and illegal wildlife trade is still Africa's sad reality. This was clearly shown in the latest undercover investigation coordinated by Interpol which led to the seizure of about a ton of ivory along with hippo teeth and cheetah, leopard and python skins, and in which 57 people were arrested.
U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species banned the ivory trade in 1989 but that still hasn't prevented elephant hunting, though it has to be said that it did help recover elephant population in some African countries, for instance in Kenya elephant population has grown from 16,000 to 27,000, though this is very small number compared to 1970s when there were more than 150,000.
Elephants are most common targets of animal poachers because of valuable ivory, and illegal ivory trade still remains major problem in Africa. These actions should really come more often, if not for anything else than at least to strike fear in poachers that kill these beautiful animals only because of valuable ivory.
There are still many elephants that live in fear in Africa. Yes they live in fear because they can feel the danger, fear drives them away, forcing them to to settle into smaller and smaller habitat areas. Poaching is serious crime, and poachers should be severely punished. Hopefully this undercover investigation is only a beginning of fight against poaching in Africa.
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