Rhino and Elephant Poaching

• Tusk was launched in 1990 in response to a poaching crisis in Africa, which was pushing the black rhino towards extinction and seeing 100,000 elephant slaughtered each year. With Tusk’s help, rapid intervention and a trade ban turned the tide, and rhino and elephant populations began to recover. Tragically, poaching has returned throughout Africa, and Tusk is once again at the forefront of efforts to tackle it.The illegal wildlife trade has become the fourth most lucrative transnational crime after drugs, arms and human trafficking.

• Up to 30,000 African elephants are killed each year for their tusks; that’s one every 15 minutes, a rate that populations cannot sustain.
• Experts estimate that 70% of the African forest elephant population has been wiped out in the past 10 years.
• Already threatened by habitat loss and conflict with people, African lions are now also being targeted by poachers for traditional Chinese medicine, with their bones serving as a substitute for tiger bones.
• Since 2008 poachers have killed at least 5,940 African rhinos...... 
• Rhino poaching is currently at a crisis point. By the end of 2015, the number of African rhinos killed by poachers had increased for the sixth year in a row with at least 1,338 rhinos killed by poachers across Africa in 2015. These statistics are compiled by by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG).