Newsletter
ISSUES
Elephant culling: Myth versus Fact
If we don't stop them, they will murder this mother and her children and thousands more like them. Once again, the ivory trade and hunting industries have convinced the South African government to allow mass murder of elephant families in the name of 'culling', a sick euphemism for mass murder of highly intelligent and social beings. The Big Lies told over and over again must be exposed.
MYTH: Elephants are "commodities" and "renewable resources."
FACT: Elephants are highly complex, compassionate and intelligent social beings. They communicate seismically over hundreds of kilometres, experience emotions, have close familial ties, have life spans as long as humans and mourn their dead.
MYTH: Elephants are overpopulating.
FACT: Elephant communities continue to live in balance with their surroundings.
MYTH: Elephants are destroying biodiversity.
FACT: Elephants play an essential and vital role in maintaining and diversifying bio-communities.
MYTH: Culling will only be used as a "last resort" after "all alternatives have been explored."
FACT: Culling is the government’s first and favoured option and non-lethal alternatives (such as the creation of corridors and megaparks, contraception, botanical exclusion zones, etc) are not being implemented and are deliberately ignored.
MYTH: Culling is an effective tool to manage elephant overpopulation.
FACT: Culling disrupts population dynamics, keeps the population density high and actually causes population growth -- the very developments that culling is supposed to address.
MYTH: Culling is a science-based decision.
FACT: Culling is driven by and for profits, benefiting the ivory, hide, hunting and safari industries.
Despite the prevailing mindset, elephants are 'worth' more alive than dead. Eco-tourism is a far greater economic resource than any perceived 'gains' or 'savings' through hunting and culling.
HELP STOP SOUTH AFRICA'S UNJUST WAR ON ELEPHANTS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
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