LA Times: Elephant poachers are hard at work in Africa, and carbon dating proves it

Post date: Nov 8, 2016 6:59:45 PM

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-elephant-ivory-poaching-20161107-story.html

keyword: radioisotope dating; carbon isotope

Written by Amina Khan, LA Times

Elephant poaching is alive and well — and the elephants are not. A team of scientists examining seized shipments of elephant tusks from Africa have found that the vast majority of the ivory came from elephants that died within the last three years. The sobering results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that the killing of elephants for their ivory is continuing at a disturbing pace — even as elephant populations across the continent are in sharp decline. While poaching had been easing for several years, it has returned with a vengeance in the last decade or so, said lead author Thure Cerling, a geochemist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Central African forest elephants have fallen by an estimated 62% from 2002 to 2011. At the Selous Wildlife Reserve in Tanzania, savanna elephants have declined 66% from 2009 to 2013. For more, go to main article: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-elephant-ivory-poaching-20161107-story.html