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1 1 (December 23, 2015)

handle is hein.crs/govcduv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 01;0i E.$~ & p\w -- , gnom goo mppm qq\ , q I as 11LULANJILiN, Updated December 23, 2015 Wildlife Poaching in Africa: An Overview Wildlife poaching occurs in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region rich in biodiversity. Many African wildlife species are poached for their body parts or bushmeat. While poaching operations vary in complexity, scope, and scale, those that involve the illegal killing of elephants and rhinos are reportedly often carried out by sophisticated, highly organized, and well-armed criminal groups. In recent years, an increase in demand in Asia has driven a surge in poaching and trafficking of African elephant ivory and rhino horn, threatening the long-term sustainability of these species. These trends have contributed to growing international concern about the problem and a desire by some in Congress to reexamine existing approaches to combating wildlife crime. African Elephants. African elephant populations range across 35 to 38 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with most known populations located in Southern and East Africa (home to 55% and 28% of the continent's elephants, respectively). Global levels of poaching and illegal trade in ivory increased in the mid-2000s and peaked in 2010-2012, when an estimated 100,000 elephants were reportedly killed over a three year period. This trend followed a reduction in poaching in the 1990s, which was largely attributed to a global ban on the international trade in ivory. Since 2012, overall trends in elephant poaching levels have plateaued at an unsustainably high level. In 2013, poaching claimed at least 20,000 elephants, or two-thirds of total African elephant deaths. The current African elephant population is estimated to be between 400,000 and 600,000 elephants, down from 1.2 million in 1980. Selected Elephant Poaching Incidents Mink6b66 National Park (Gabon): The Gabonese government reported in early 2013 that more than 11,000 elephants (about two-thirds of the park's population) had been killed since 2004. Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe): poachers poisoned water wells with cyanide in mid-2013, killing potentially more than 300 elephants. 48 more have been poisoned in 2015 in Hwange and other parks in Zimbabwe. Garamba National Park (Democratic Republic of Congo): 68 elephants were killed over two months in early 2014. Many were reportedly killed from a helicopter. Gourma (Mali): 57 desert elephants, representing 20%/ of the remaining desert elephant population in Mali, were killed between January October 2015, according to U.N. peacelkeepers in Mali. Recent significant declines in elephant population levels have occurred in Central Africa, a region that suffers from ongoing security challenges and limited law enforcement. Increasingly, however, East Africa has become a key source and transit point for ivory. Three countries in East Africa- Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania-accounted for approximately 80% of all large-scale (i.e., 500 kg or larger) African seizures of ivory in 2013, indicating that these countries are major transit points for ivory. In June 2015, the Tanzanian government reported that its elephant population dropped by more than 60% in just five years- from 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 at the end of 2014. These trends threaten the sustainability of regional and continent- wide elephant populations as well as conservation gains since the 1980s, when poachers killed as many as 100,000 elephants per year, according to conservationists. Black and White Rhinoceros. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a public-private partnership, as of 2012 the black rhino population stood at 5,055 and the white rhino population totaled 20,405. Rhinoceros populations in Africa are largely concentrated in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The highest level of rhino poaching is in South Africa, which is home to roughly 80% of the African rhino population. An estimated 1,215 rhinos were poached in 2014, following a trend for South Africa that reflects a dramatic increase in poaching since 2007 (see Figure 1). The uptick in rhino poaching represents a major reversal of trends in the 1990s; observers assert that poaching had effectively been brought to a halt during that period, largely as a result of anti-poaching initiatives led by South Africa. In recent years, South Africa has intensified anti-poaching efforts, potentially contributing to the anticipated decline in rhinos poached in 2015. Figure I. Rhinos Poached in South Africa 2W) *3 2 1,43_213 =1 2012W8 10~4 t Source: CRS compilation of UN, CITES, and South African Department of Environmental Affairs data. *Note: 749 rhinos poached in 2015 as of August 27, 2015. N.: z:OO~:2$' ~dN

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