Save Wildlife

Efforts to save wildlife are working. There is a Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). A major circus closed rather than continue subjecting elephants and tigers to punishing animal act training methods. Some dolphins and whales have retired. Underpasses let wildlife run under railroads in African nature preserves, and plantation owners are pressured to set aside "no go zones" and wildlife corridors to protect wildlife.

     But finding a shipping container with at least 14,000 pounds of elephant ivory tusks hidden under frozen fish in Hong Kong this July shows much more needs to be done. Arrests, fines, and prison sentences need to be imposed on wildlife killers and greedy poachers, smugglers, and traffickers. Loopholes that allow countries to operate domestic ivory markets and permit imports of "worked" ivory, i.e. carved canes, chess sets, jewelry, and statues, to allow reworked and repaired ivory to slip through need to be eliminated.

     Students interested in protecting endangered species can begin now to look for career opportunities in a wide variety of organizations:

• Traffic (traffic.org), a joint program of the World Wide Fund for Nature and the World Conservation Union
• World Wildlife Fund (worldwildlife.org)
• National Geographic (nationalgeographic.com)
• On the internet, look for organizations devoted to protecting: elephants, tigers, dolphins, whales, guerrillas, chimpanzees, orangutans.