PLEASE DON'T KILL THE ELEPHANTS!

Please contact the ambassador at the end of this e-mail and ask to stop this.
Also please repost to your blog.

From PETA.org:

Urge South Africa to 'Cull' Elephant Killing From Policy

South Africa’s newest elephant “management” policy includes killing as an option for controlling elephant populations.

These mass killing operations tear apart elephant families and leave the survivors permanently scarred. Between 1967 and 1995, 14,562 elephants in South Africa’s Kruger National Park were culled. Terrified elephants were herded into groups with helicopters while people on the ground and in the air opened fire with high-powered weapons. Elephants are capable of communicating over long distances, and their death screams were undoubtedly heard by other elephants miles away. Innumerable orphaned calves, who were regarded as valuable collateral, were sold to zoos and circuses, where many were beaten into submission, chained, and confined and had their precious freedom taken and their spirits broken. And scientists are now determining that these individuals were left with lifelong emotional trauma from witnessing the violent executions of their families.

Although elephants are considered by many to be the quintessential symbol of the African continent and ecotourism plays an important role in the South African economy, many of the country’s officials treat elephants as nuisances to be “controlled,” marketed, and profited from. These magnificent animals are viewed by some as commodities to be killed, hacked into pieces, skinned, canned, carved, and sold bit by bit.

Numerous scientists have condemned South Africa’s proposal to kill elephants. There is no evidence that elephants pose an imminent risk to biodiversity. Reducing the elephant population is arbitrary and scientifically unsound, and it reflects outdated wildlife-management principles. Please urge South Africa to remove culling from the list of options for elephant “management” and implement the humane, sensible suggestions advocated by scientists and reported by Care for the Wild International, including the following:

• Reduce the number of artificially created watering holes—this would divert elephants to previously underutilized areas.
• Expand protected elephant habitats by linking them to adjacent areas, and develop migration corridors to other regions.
• Develop community-based wildlife-conservation programs outside the existing protected areas to increase the benefits of tourism to nearby rural areas.
• Protect vulnerable and valuable areas by erecting and maintaining fences and implementing other nonlethal deterrents.
• Administer contraception, which is affordable and involves minimal intervention that can reduce the number of elephants in a large population.

Please send polite comments to:

Her Excellency Barbara Joyce Masekela
Ambassador of South Africa
Embassy of South Africa
3051 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
202-232-4400
202-265-1607 (fax)
ambassador@saembassy.org
vanheerdenm@foreign.gov.za

Even though elephant culling has generated a worldwide outcry, the zoo community has remained strangely silent. If zoos truly foster respect for wildlife, as they purport to do, they should be leading the charge to prevent this tragedy. Please contact your local zoo officials and ask them to do the following:

• Speak out publicly against any elephant “management” proposal that includes culling as an option.
• Pledge not to obtain elephant calves orphaned in culls, thus removing African countries’ financial incentive to slaughter adult elephants.