Elephant Pictures - The Magnificent SEVEN - Big Tusker Elephants

Zimbabwe Elephant 2012

Just weighed first elephant, 68 pounds.

A beautiful 68 pound Elephant hunted in Niassa Mozambique.

Elephant hunted in the APNR South Africa.

A great old Elephant bull hunted in Niassa Mozambique in October.

Elephant tusks from my client's Niassa Mozambique Elephant bull in September.

Here is a picture sent to me by world renowned professional hunter Alain Lefol from Alain Lefol Safaris of a magnificent Elephant taken on the Vovodo River in Central Africa.

Hard it imagine that these big boys still exist.

KWAHERI SATAO - SAYING GOODBYE TO A TSAVO ICON
June 13, 2014

With great sadness, we report the death of Satao, one of Tsavo’s most iconic and well-loved tuskers. This magnificent elephant was widely known in Tsavo East National Park, where he was observed with awe by many thousands of Tsavo’s visitors over the years. No longer will Tsavo and Kenya benefit from his mighty presence. Satao was shot dead by poisoned arrow on 30th May 2014. The arrow had entered his left flank and he stood no chance of survival. We spotted his carcass on 2nd June but to avoid any potential false alarms, we first took pains to verify the carcass really was his. Today it is with enormous regret that we confirm there is no doubt that Satao is dead, killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off countries. A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece.


Satao, a mighty beast and one of Tsavo's best loved icons

THIS REPORT HAS BEEN CLEARED FOR PUBLIC CIRCULATION BY THE KENYA WILDLIFE SERVICE.

INCIDENT REPORT

For the last 18 months, KENYA WILDLIFE SERVICE (KWS) and TSAVO TRUST jointly monitored Satao’s movements using aerial reconnaissance, and KWS deployed ground personnel in his known home range. But with today’s mounting poaching pressures and anti-poaching resources stretched to the limit, it proved impossible to prevent the poachers getting through the net.

Immediately reports of a fresh carcass in this area of Tsavo were received by KWS, a TSAVO TRUST reconnaissance flight took off with a KWS officer on board. It did not take long to locate the carcass near the boundary of the National Park. A joint KWS / TSAVO TRUST ground team followed up immediately. Despite the mutilated head, they deduced that the carcass was most probably that of Satao for the following reasons:

• Satao was well known by the KWS / TSAVO TRUST units operating continuously in this area. When he was alive, his enormous tusks were easily identifiable, even from the air. Although the poachers had hacked off his face and taken his ivory, there were other physical attributes and circumstantial evidence that pointed to this carcass being that of Satao.
• Satao was very much a creature of habit. He roamed a very specific area, known to KWS and TSAVO TRUST, most often in the company of small groups of bull elephant.
• With the recent rain, over 1,000 elephants have moved into the area to take advantage of the green and plentiful vegetation. Satao had not moved from this area for the last two months.
• Satao was last seen alive by TSAVO TRUST on 19th May 2014, just 300 meters from where his carcass now lies. He was with four other bulls that he was frequently seen with. During May 2014, TSAVO TRUST had observed him no fewer than 9 times from the air and several times from the ground. Protection efforts were stepped up when he ventured right up to the boundary of the Park (an area that is a historical and present poaching hotspot, especially for poachers using poisoned arrows).
• Satao had “clean ears” – there were no cuts, tears or obvious scars, making him easily identifiable when he was alive and now that he is dead.
• The mud caked on his mutilated forehead and back was similar to that seen on him when he was alive.
• Since locating the carcass, several joint KWS / TSAVO TRUST reconnaissance flights have tried and failed to locate Satao in his known home range.

The facts all point to the same appalling conclusion and we are left with no choice but to acknowledge that the great Satao is no more.

THE ENORMITY OF THE TASK AT HAND

The area Satao frequented is a massive and hostile expanse for any single anti-poaching unit to cover, at least one thousand square kilometers in size. Roads and tracks are few and far between and in parts the vegetation is very thick, making access difficult. Elephants concentrate here in large numbers after the rains which come in from the coast. The communities living just beyond the National Park boundary persistently carry out illegal activities inside the Park in this area. Understaffed and with inadequate resources given the scale of the challenge, KWS ground units have a massive uphill struggle to protect wildlife in this area. There is a tremendous will amongst the KWS field units and the TSAVO TRUST personnel working alongside them to protect Tsavo’s elephant herds but more help is needed.


Satao, second from the rear, in the company of his fellow Tsavo bulls

COOPERATION IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

At times like this, it is hard to see any positive side to the situation. But let’s not forget that Satao’s genes survive out there, somewhere in the Tsavo elephant population and they too need protecting. Satao would have been at least 45 years old. During his lifetime he would have weathered many droughts and seen many other poached elephants, and he would have sired offspring that, given a safe environment to grow up in, may become tomorrow’s generation of great Tsavo tuskers.

We also wish to emphasize the level of cooperation and coordination between KWS and TSAVO TRUST that this incident proved. Without the regular joint KWS / TSAVO TRUST aerial reconnaissance of this section of the Park, Satao’s carcass may not have been found, and as a result KWS’s swift and successful follow-up may not have ensued. Following TSAVO TRUST’s report from the air, KWS ground units were immediately deployed. The KWS reaction was rapid and decisive, and is still ongoing. Due to the sensitivities of such operations and the risk of compromise, we cannot comment further on the progress being made. We hope to relay additional updates in due course.

Meanwhile, we applaud KWS’s success in arresting the main poison dealer and supplier in Kilifi, whose deadly product has been the cause of many painful and wasteful elephant deaths in Tsavo.

We would also like to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of our other partners who make our work with Tsavo's elephants possible, include lead project funders Save The Elephants and the Wildlife Conservation Network - Elephant Crisis Fund, as well as Stuart Herd who donated our aircraft, and many other generous supporters.

Working together – and often against the odds - we can continue to make a positive difference to Tsavo and to Tsavo’s elephants.

Tsavo is our home, our passion and our life’s work but, as the untimely death of Satao so tragically proves, we cannot win every time. Rest in peace, Old Friend, you will be missed. Rest assured the fight to protect Tsavo’s elephants goes on.

>> TSAVO TRUST's Big Tusker Project





Source: TSAVO TRUST http://tsavotrust.org/news/2014/6/13/kwaheri-satao-saying-goodbye-to-a-tsavo-icon

Satao, one of Africa’s largest elephants, killed by poachers for ivory tusks weighing more than 45 kg
by Zoe Flood, The Telegraph | June 15, 2014


Richard Moller, of The Tsavo Trust, who had been monitoring Satao for several months, said: "There is no doubt that he is dead, killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off countries. A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece."

One of Africa’s last “great tuskers,” elephants with ivory weighing more than 45 kilograms, has been poisoned by poachers in Kenya.

The bull, named Satao, and likely to have been born in the late 1960s, succumbed to wounds from poison darts in a remote corner of Tsavo National Park, where he had migrated to find fresh water after recent storms.

Yesterday, his carcass lay with its face and great tusks hacked off, four legs splayed where he fell, left only for the vultures and the scavengers.


A soaring demand for ivory in a number of Asian nations has seen poaching reach levels that were last seen in the 1980s before the ivory trade was banned.

Conservationists told how Satao moved from bush to bush always keeping his ivory hidden amongst the foliage. “I’m convinced he did that to hide his tusks from humans, he had an awareness that they were a danger to him,” said Mark Deeble, a documentary maker who has spent long periods filming the elephant. Satao’s killing is the latest in a surge of elephant poaching across Africa.

Richard Moller, of The Tsavo Trust, who had been monitoring Satao for several months, said: “There is no doubt that he is dead, killed by an ivory poacher’s poisoned arrow to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for ivory in far off countries. A great life lost so that someone far away can have a trinket on their mantelpiece.”

A soaring demand for ivory in a number of Asian nations has seen poaching reach levels that were last seen in the 1980s before the ivory trade was banned.

“The loss of such an iconic elephant is the most visible and heart-rending tip of this iceberg, this tragedy that is unfolding across the continent,” said Frank Pope of Save The Elephants in Nairobi.

The street value of elephant ivory is now greater than gold, running to tens of thousands of pounds per tusk. Organised criminals are increasingly running poaching gangs and networks, officials have said.

More than 20,000 African elephants were slaughtered in 2013, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has documented the killing of 97 elephants so far this year. Experts dispute official statistics claiming that the number of elephants that have been killed has declined. KWS recorded that 302 elephants were poached in 2013, down from 384 the previous year, of a total estimated population of 38,000 in Kenya.


Satao’s killing is the latest in a surge of elephant poaching across Africa.

In March, the renowned conservationist Richard Leakey described poaching in Kenya as a “national disaster,” saying poachers were operating with “outrageous” impunity.

Earlier this month, police seized more than 200 elephant tusks weighing more than 2,000 kg in a warehouse in the port city of Mombasa. Nelson Marwa, Mombasa county commissioner, said the find was linked to terrorism and drug barons in the city.


One of Africa’s last "great tuskers,"elephants with ivory weighing more than 45 kg, has been poisoned by poachers in Kenya.

Until recently, poachers in Kenya faced lenient sentences and few were successfully prosecuted.

A study by WildlifeDirect, a Nairobi-based charity, found that over the past five years just 4 per cent of those convicted of wildlife crimes in 18 of the country’s courts were sent to jail. There is hope that tough new legislation passed earlier this year will lead to higher conviction rates and tougher sentences.

“Satao was probably one of half a dozen of Kenya’s great tuskers, possibly the largest,” said Mr Deeble.

“It’s a devastating situation. Kenya’s last great tuskers need presidential protection.

“If Satao’s death can galvanize the focus on what’s actually happening here in terms of poaching, then he won’t have died in vain.”





Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/0...tusks-weighing-more-than-45-kg/#__federated=1

The genetic vs environment debate on how significant genetic determinsim is of the expected occurrence of large ivory in African elephants vs environmental issues relating to tusk growth ( nutrition and mechanical wear of tusks) suggests a field exists that Hunting funding might well consider for financial support of research. Scientific studies need to be focused on the dwindling numbers of large tusked elephants as these giants are these days few and far between.
An accommodation of sorts has been reached with hunting organizations and private land owners adjacent to Kruger National Park to avoid the taking of the remaining over 100lbs a side few of Kruger's giants who might wander into hunting areas but a similar accommodation and understanding is needed I think, to cover operations in the CAMPFIRE areas along the Limpopo in Zimbabwe amongst the Gonarezhou/Kruger elephant population.
The research needed, if it has not already been done, would be useful in identifying ( if genetic traits are critical) how to manage elephant herds so as to avoid hunting gene bearing but as yet not impressive males so that those genes are passed down and only hunt post-breeding beyond their prime older bulls whose genetic messages are already well sown through out the elephant community concerned? If environmental issues are paramount, and if less effect on numbers of large ivory carriers is derived from genetics, then research could pin point factors and areas in which large tusks are probably never going to develop making the need for selective hunting of bulls less important?

Hello Jerome, hello Folks,

A wonderful thread.
I hope you like a a few information about Ivory products from old days.

For a few weeks I got in contact to Mr. Bücking ,a gentleman ,who is sitting in Erlangen,a little town in Germany.
His ancestors established in 1746 -when your country was a british colony and George Washington a teenager-the biggest ivory proccessing company.
They got their Ivory from Meyer/Hamburg, the biggest Ivory trader in that times.

What do you think,that Ivory was mostly needed ?
Not for billiard balls, not for piano (Tasten ? I cant' find the right word in my dictionary).
Mr. Bücking told me: 20 tons a year they produced : Louses-combs from Ivory and exported these things in the whole world,decades over decades.
They made sure a lot of money in these golden age of Ivory hunting and Bücking was an extraordinary firm,they created a health fund for their workers in 1840 (American Mexico war).
Some tooth is documentet with 90kg !!
To bad that the archive was lost in a fire during the war.

In the 20th century when the synthetic materials was fabricated,especially Celluloid,the company was going down.
He ist working now allone and make ornaments or something.Not so much ,because his supply on ivory is less and he is old.
The chinese are buying legal ivory for absurd prices,they like more the papers,because than they can mix their illegal Ivory with the legal.

Apologise my english
Foxi


Ivory from Uganda 2,5m 60kg each


Ivory Kongo 2,62m 67 kg each


Tobora East Africa 2,94 cm 44kg

I've often wondered if elephants like these are still around outside of the parks. I like to hope so.

Foxi,

Interesting facts about the louse combs. If I had hair I might need one.

Neat old photos. Beautiful ivory.

Thanks for the post!

Wheels said:

Foxi,

Interesting facts about the louse combs. If I had hair I might need one.

Neat old photos. Beautiful ivory.

Thanks for the post!

Click to expand...

+1 Thanks Foxi.

not compulsatory the right present for Telly Savallas and Yul Brunner
(R.I.P. these good guys)

Foxi said:

not compulsatory the right present for Telly Savallas and Yul Brunner
(R.I.P. these good guys)

Click to expand...

Had head lice a couple of times as a kid. Dads answer was to cut all my hair off and wash my head in kerosene. Got rid of the lice. Not sure what else it did.

Sorry for the diversion.

Here's another beautiful Bull