Non-Existent Fashion Scruples

"[The Crocodylus niloticus listed under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is] threatened with extinction."
"Trade in specimens of these species is permitted only in exceptional circumstances."
The Washington Convention

"Morally, one has to wonder whether it's appropriate to be selling an item that so much cruelty has gone into producing."
"[The right thing to do would be to give it a proper burial or to destroy it] rather than sell it off and promote the idea that luxury bags made from brutally killed endangered animals are something desirable for society."
Camille Labchuk, animal rights lawyer, executive director, Animal Justice

Interior view of the crocodile-skin Birkin bag up for auction by the government of Canada. Public Services and Procurement Canada

In 1984 actress Jane Birkin happened to meet Hermes chairman Jean-Louis Dumas on a flight, according to Hermes publicity material. The actress informed the man who headed one of the most prestigious producers of handbags in France that her search for a stylish yet practical bag with enough room to carry baby bottles had eluded success. "No sooner said than done, the empathetic, clever Monsieur Dumas designs a deep and supple holdall", claimed the Hermes website. Not only did Jane Birkin get a bag to her specifications, but the bag itself was named in her honour.

At some later date when she became aware of the endangered species designation given to the very animals from which her bag and others like it were produced, she asked that her name be taken off the bag's identity. What happened to her original bag is perhaps not known; whether it saw the use she contemplated when she travelled with her little girl, or whether she set it aside for a more utilitarian, less celebrated label that worked just as well or even better than the one produced for her.

However, one of these bags modelled after her own and produced by Hermes had been seized by court order, forming part of a forfeiture, which is how it came into government hands in 2014. It has been retained in storage up to the present time, but was recently put up for auction by an agency specializing in selling surplus government items. Potential bidders had to make appointments to view the bag: "Walk-ins will be turned away", stated the government auction listing.

And the potential of bidding for the French designer bag was of necessity limited to those who could or would attempt its ownership through a minimum bid of $26,289. A whole lot of money for anyone to slap down for possession of a mere handbag. It is by necessity a plaything and proud possession of the moneyed and the unscrupulous. Celebrity bait. The bag is advertised as in pristine condition, a minor scratch on the interior lining.

An authentication letter accompanies it from an executive of the manufacturer established in New York, certifying its market value; approximately $30,000 -- and up. In 2017 just such a bag was sold at auction for an astonishing $380,000 by Christie's auction house in Hong Kong, proving in action that old maxim that too many people have more money than brains.

Another, sold more recently in London at christie's went for $300,000. As far as legalities are concerned there is little of issue in selling such a handbag since the purpose of the the Washington Convention is to prevent trade across borders, not within borders; added to which a personal effects exemption applies, into which category a handbag would likely fall.

Still, since the Nile crocodile is listed at the highest level in the international treaty restricting trade in endangered species, the government agency overseeing the sale of this item warns that whoever becomes the successful bidder, will be unable to export the bag without a special government permit. This bag, produced in Paris in 2011, in government hands for the past five years should have, as Ms. Labchuk suggested, been destroyed, in reflection of its unethical moral status.

Jane Birkin. Christophe Ena/AP file photo

Intrusions Into Nature's Habitats

"Farmers will walk along fences and find six to eight dead tortoises in the space of one hundred meters."
"These [electrical] fences have got the capacity to decimate whole [animal species] populations, and they're doing that."
Luke Arnot, veterinary surgeon, South Africa

Elephants killed after being electrocuted when they pushed power lines into a pool of water they were drinking from. The blood is from burst blood vessels, a common symptom of electrocution.  Africa Geographic, 2017

"The terrible thing about power lines is that every single one will kill. But people here say they don't care because we need to develop our country." 
"In wildlife areas in Kenya, hyenas and other animals make paths to power lines to get at dead birds."
"This makes it impossible to go underneath power lines to enumerate the number of deaths. But I think this is a growing threat and that it’s enormously underestimated by most wildlife conservationists, wardens and conservancy managers."
Simon Thomsett, ornithologist, trustee, Kenya Bird of Prey Trust

Electrocution is becoming so common that it jeopardises the survival of some species

Getty/iStock

"Animals have caused outages, disruptions and damage to infrastructure amounting to billions of dollars."
"We estimate that 60 per cent of line faults and interruptions in South Africa are wildlife-related. It’s really important to engineer this problem out."
Constant Hoogstad, senior manager, industry partnerships, Endangered Wildlife Trust, South Africa

Africa is in its development stages, South Africa a country where ranches, farms and national parks are partitioned off, and surrounded by kilometers of electrical fencing to ensure that unwanted animals are kept out, along with human intruders' that livestock is adequately protected from predators, and so it is with wildlife in national parks as well. The fencing that has such a defined purpose also represents a solution to one problem of unwanted intrusion while at the same time  becomes a deadly hazard to any animals which come afoul of its protective presence.

Interventions to reduce collisions with power lines have so far met with little success

Getty/iStock

To these unwary animals these fences have an incontestable deadly impact. Smaller animals such as birds and reptiles which are meant to be environmentally protected become casualties in huge numbers. Trip wires positioned some 15 centimeters off the ground meant to zap a deterrence to hunting carnivores like lions and bush pigs accustomed to raiding crops are to a large measure to blame for the carnage. The presumption of a deterrent effect does not always result; some creatures after being stunned simply remain where they are.

Tortoises hitting a tripwire withdraw into their shells, failing to leave and taking haven in their instinctive withdrawal where it feels itself immune to danger while pangolins tend to curl over the wire into a defensive posture, and when both of these animals react as they would under any threatening circumstances, they remain shocked and finally their hearts cease beating. A 2008 study undertaken in South Africa revealed 21,000 reptiles are killed annually on contact with electrical fences.

Dr. Arnot, alarmed by these statistics, has attempted to alert authorities as well as farmers who install those fences. Publishing articles in farming and ranching journals detailing commonsense and modest changes that will bypass some of the dangers inherent in the electric fences to devise wildlife-friendly guidelines in installing electrical fences. Principally, to lift the trip wires to a greater height from the ground as well as operating the current at night exclusively since this is when predators tend to stalk their prey. Simple. Effective. Ignored.

Alongside the threats to wildlife of electric fences are power lines strung without a thought to outcome in countries in a hurry to advance their infrastructure and which end up electrocuting animals where collisions with power lines are so fatal for the avian population. Along with the deadly costs in conservation, a notable economic toll is guaranteed. As an example, a vervet monkey caused a nationwide blackout after tripping a transformer in Kenya in 2016. Power was cut to 4.7 million homes and businesses.

Surivival of some species is jeopardized through electrocution and considered a leading threat to Cape vultures in southern Africa, already endangered, along with critically endangered white-backed vultures. An estimated four thousand endangered Saker falcons are electrocuted in Central Asia each year. Over one hundred endangered Asian elephants were killed by electrocution in the state of Odisha, India over a dozen years through contact with power lines.

Even large animals such as elephants are at risk of electrocution (in India)

AFP/Getty

In various countries leopards, Cape buffalo, white rhinos, Giraffes and African elephants have been electrocuted in numbers. Thirty species and subspecies of primates are affected in Asia, Africa and Latin America by electrocution. According to Lydia Katsis, a recent graduate of Bristol Veterinary School in Britain, "This is a widespread problem, but it’s also under-reported and under-studied, so there could be more species affected."

Species at Risk -- White-Nose Syndrome

"It's tough to guess if it's [the fungal morbidity of bat colonies] going to have a long-term effect on pest control in agricultural systems."
"Enough species are around that we may see them pick up the slack [in the absence of the affected species]."
Justin Boyles, professor of zoology, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

"I have literally seen this species decline before my very eyes."
"We have to put the bats in the context of the landscape. We have to conserve or build that environment."
Mark Ford, professor of zoology, Virginia Tech

White nose syndrome is fatal to most of the bats exposed to it. (Ryan von Linden/New York Department of Environmental Conservation/AP)

Pseudogymnoascus destructans is the scientific name of a deadly fungus causing bats throughout North America to die in alarming numbers. It is also called White-Nose Syndrome, and is responsible for the deaths of over 90 percent of the bats susceptible to the disease, northern long-eared bats. These tiny, nocturnal creatures eat flying insects and they also fertilize crops. Researchers are focused on a desperate search to find and examine the bat species that the disease has not harmed to discover what it is that allows them immunity from the deadly effects of the fungus, allowing them to survive.

Some 2,000 bats winter in Pearson Cave in Tennessee.  Stephen Alvarez, National Geographic Photographic Collection

"We have to understand what we need to protect", explained doctoral student Sam Freeze who hunts at night in search of bats escaping the ravages of this mysterious disease, in the woods located behind  Virginia University. With the use of "mist nets", the team working alongside Freeze set the nets about twelve feet in height, like large volleyball nets. Once a bat is captured having flown into the trap it is put in a brown paper bag and taken nearby to an outdoor laboratory for examination.

Weight and gender recorded, fecal samples are taken to determine diet and then small transmitters are affixed to the bats with surgical glue. Resistant to the unwanted handling, the bats try to bite the offending fingers. Tagged, details duly noted, the bats -- focus on eastern red where the fungus causing white-nose has been found yet the species seems unaffected -- are released, the device with its antenna tracking their movements and position.

For the past decade, millions of bats in the 32 states and seven provinces -- east of Saskatchewan -- have been killed from the deadly effect of white-nose syndrome, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. In the absence of bats consuming insects, the fallout could result in farmers having to deal themselves with an increasing insect population, no longer falling prey to a diminishing number of bats. The alternative is a greater use of pesticides rather than risk losing crops to insect predation.

Since white-nose syndrome was first identified it has spread to thirty-one states. The consequences—for bats, humans, and the U.S. economy—could be disastrous.

Photograph by Michael Durham / Minden Pictures / Getty

Hope lies in the fact that other species may increase in numbers to deal with burgeoning insect populations. Primarily fewer northern bats are now in flight, since they specifically have been targeted by the fungus. Originating in Europe and Asia, white-nose syndrome made its way to North America. It destroys the membranes in the bats' wings. The telltale white dots covering dead bats speaks of the presence of the disease in caves where bats are known to hibernate.

The disease awakens bats prematurely -- when they should remain in hibernation until winter is past -- depleting critical fat reserves, with dehydration then setting in. As the bats leave the protection of the cave, they may die from starvation or exposure to the inclement weather conditions. The disease was described as "the most devastating epizootic wildlife disease of mammals in history", in a scientific paper published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

Once infected, bats behave in an erratic fashion during their winter hibernation, emerging from their caves -- where crowded conditions of thousands of bats are present, aiding the fungus to spread -- during the day and failing to return to the caves. Theories do exist, that bats may survive or attempt to by avoiding caves, instead spending the winter months in trees where the threat of white-nose is reduced, or some may simply be resistant to the disease.

Little brown bat with WNS symptoms | Courtesy of University of Illinois/Steve Taylor

Global Efforts in Wildlife Protection? Another Urban Myth

"Other nations look at what's happening in Australia and the United States [in the protection of wildlife preserves], and they say, 'Why should we bother'?"
"[Governments tend to boast about their virtuous protection of sensitive natural geographic areas but do nothing practical to protect them; they are] selling a myth."
"We show that governments are significantly overestimating the space they have made available for nature. Governments are claiming these places are protected for the sake of nature when in reality they aren't. It is a major reason why biodiversity is still in a catastrophic decline, despite more and more land being protected."
"If you only counted the lands in protected areas that are not degraded, 77 of those [111 convention signatory] nations don't meet the bar."
"Helping them succeed requires more sustained and dedicated effort and we are undertaking research to identify those intact, biologically important places around the world that still need protection and the mechanisms that will best ensure they are protected."
Dr. E.M. Watson, conservation scientist, University of Queensland, Australia

"If we are going to take natural history seriously, and all the things our communities and our economies depend on from natural areas, we have to start putting parks in the right places."
"In Canada, we value our natural environment but we also put a lot of value on natural resource extraction." 
"There's a commitment from the federal government to protect 700,000 square kilometres of land. That's an area the size of Alberta."

"One of the first places we have to look is our recreational parks and how do we balance the recreational opportunities we provide in those areas with the conservation values we have."
Dr. Oscar Venter, conservation scientist, University of Northern British Columbia

Marriott Basin, British Columbia   Photo: JSR

No fewer than 168 nations signed on to the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity, pledging to conserve 17 percent of terrestrial and ten percent marine protected areas by the year 2020. Governments are well aware of the need to protect their geological land mass hosting wildlife species specific to their areas of the world, as well as marine life in the waters they hold territorial claims to. As a result, since the early 1990s, various nations have extended their protected natural areas, covering close to 14 percent of the terrestrial Earth, and a rough five percent of the oceans, set aside for wildlife protection.

When governments in various nations inform their populations of the initiatives undertaken in the protection of natural areas and their inhabitants, it leaves the desired impression that these are governments cognizant of the vital importance in securing these natural resources for posterity. The impression is left that these are areas that are protected from industrial scale mining, logging or any other disruptive activities harmful to natural ecology and the biosphere. It's one thing to designate an area protected, however, and quite another to commit to measures that will ensure these are protected areas.

Chilliwack, B.C.  Photo: JSR

Dr. Watson of University of Queensland in Australia, senior author of the new report recently published in the journal Science, resulting from an examination of 50,000 protected wildlife areas and reserves both terrestrial and aquatic throughout the world, points in particular to the Barrow Island Marine Park in Australia, home to rare mammals, reptiles, birds and invertebrates, many of which are found nowhere else on the planet. Despite its protected status, government gave permission for construction and expansion of an energy complex supplied by over 450 oil and natural gas wells.

He points out that no natural sites are particularly protected from that other imperative -- development for economic purposes --  where even World Heritage sites recognized by UNESCO are often treated closer to farmland to be exploited, than to wilderness areas requiring protection. Tanzania saw UNESCO willing to approve a uranium mine in its Selous Game Reserve, home to a large elephant population once, and the Selous was subsequently moved to the list of endangered World Heritage sites.

Target issues in the Convention on Biodiversity appear straightforward and easily achieved, yet governments ignore the admonition inherent in the convention to protect areas "of particular importance to biodiversity", preferring to focus on size of the area concerned in isolation of the more important issue of where those protected areas are identified, according to a recent study in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Remote regions are chosen to designate as protected areas where inconvenience is at a minimum, placing protected areas in regions with fewer endangered species.

As an example, Brazil designated marine protected areas of sizeable dimensions, ignoring the better option of near-shore areas with a greater diversity of vulnerable wildlife threatened more immediately from human activity. The country gets Brownie points for designating great swaths of territory as protected while bypassing the greater priority of selecting areas that truly are in need of protection. Cost, convenience, and avoidance of disrupting human activity seems paramount to the alternate option of the greater good.

According to the authors of the Nature Ecology and Evolution study, the pretense of protecting species based on optics alone in the number of hectares placed under protection is faulty and designed to fail its purpose. Studying the home ranges of over 4,000 threatened species globally for a study in 2014, it was found that protected areas tend to miss 85 percent of regions truly in need of protection, so that should all 168 convention signatories meet 2020 protected area targets they would still miss 84 percent of threatened species because of the focus on size, not targeting urgent areas.

The result being, that despite meaning well, the human tendency is to slip up under the influence of a country's priorities turning to economic development. This at the sacrifice of biodiversity leaving species and subspecies to continue on their extinction trajectories as the world loses important members of the global animal kingdom: mammals, aquatic creatures, insects, birds -- of an endless, irreplaceable array of loss.

Ameliorating Disturbances for Endangered Orcas

"We know from the science that when boats are in close proximity to the whales, they don't forage as much and possibly don't forage as effectively, both because they're disturbed by the presence of the vessels and possibly by the sound of the engines."
"There is great concern right now about this population [of Killer Whales]. There has been a loss of too many whales in the last six months to a year."
Michael Milstein, spokesman, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

In this July 31, 2015, file photo, an orca whale breaches in view of Mount Baker, some 60 miles distant, in the Salish Sea in the San Juan Islands, Wash.    Elaine Thompson / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A newly published study validates the regulations instituted in 2011 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as having had a positive result in protecting the southern resident orcas while at the same time not having the foreseen disturbing effect on local whale watching and tourism industries. These killer whales found in the waters off British Columbia and Washington have species-at-risk status in Canada, and endangered species status in the United States.

In July a census indicated that in the three pods making up the population known for their presence in the Salish Sea, including the Straits of Georgia, Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, a total of 77 whales were accounted for. But according to the Center for Whale Research in Washington state, there was a count of 76 whales in December, considerably reduced from their 2016 number of 83.

The 2011 regulatory changes that were implemented in hopes of saving more of the orcas from the devastating effects of an increasingly crowded, noisy and dangerous ocean were meant to prevent vessels from approaching within 200 yards (182 metres) from whales. And nor are vessels permitted to stray into the path of the whales, or to attempt to intercept them.

In this Sept. 2017, photo made with a drone, a young resident killer whale chases a chinook salmon in the Salish Sea near San Juan Island, Wash. John Durban/NOAA Fisheries/Southwest Fisheries Science Center via AP

The purpose of the study was meant to compare research and data on vessel compliance, on biological impacts and additional related factors in the five years previous and then once the regulations were implemented, to gauge the possible outcomes. The finding was that the number of incidents of vessels interfering in any manner with whales had dramatically decreased, as a result of the regulations.

The regulations were primarily aimed at tourism and recreation vessels associated with the tourism industry in Washington State and British Columbia. Large, commercial vessels are restricted to major shipping lanes, located at a considerable distance from those parts of the ocean where the whales are known to be more frequently found. But they can also be harmfully distracting to the whales.

Before the regulations were enacted, concerns were expressed they would have a deleterious effect on the lucrative and popular tourism industry off the B.C. and Washington State coasts, but the study discovered that tax revenues from the tourism industry had actually been seen to increase significantly, belying those initial concerns.

The study did find, however, that recreational boaters seemed unaware of the regulations, leaving the obvious impression that more needs to be done to ensure public education to protect the orcas should be more broadly focused. Most commercial vessels, on the other hand, appeared to be satisfactorily recognizing and respecting the new rules.

In recognition of the success of the NOAA initiative, Canada's Fisheries Ministry is prepared to bring in similar regulations before spring to ensure that in Canadian waters too, vessels remain at minimum 200 metres distance from southern resident killer whales.


A noise reduction trial was launched earlier this year by the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, cautioning vessels to maintain a slower speed in the Haro Strait between southern Vancouver Island and San  Juan Island, but preliminary study results linked slower speeds with longer periods of time spent in the area, while at the same time reducing noise levels.

Marine Animals At Risk of Extinction

"You do have to use the extinction word, because that's where the trend lines say they are. That's something we can't let happen."
John Bullard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

"The current status of the right whales is a critical situation, and using our available resources to cover right whales is of high importance and high urgency."
Mark Murray-Brown, Endangered Species Act consultant, NOAA

There are only about 500 North Atlantic right whales in existence. (Center for Coastal Studies/NOAA)

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the League for Coastal Protection, Cetacean Society International, and Ocean Futures Society formed a coalition attempting to hold the U.S. Navy responsible for the damage its technology imposes on marine creatures. In a court brief, the coalition cited the Navy's own documents estimating that sonar testing was expected to kill 170,000 marine mammals, causing permanent injury to over 500 whales and deafness in 8,000 others. 

North Atlantic right whale breaks the ocean surface off Provincetown, Mass., in Cape Cod Bay.

Source: Associated Press

Though two lower courts agreed with the coalition that the U.S. Navy is responsible for mayhem in the Pacific in particular, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the Navy, that it should be permitted to continue its mid-frequency sonar testing as a requirement upholding national security. "The U.S. Navy could use a number of proven methods to avoid harming whales when testing mid-frequency sonar", objected IFAW’s Fred O'Regan. "Protecting whales and preserving national security are not mutually exclusive."

This has been a dreadful year for one of the most endangered whales on Earth, the North Atlantic right whale. In 2017 alone, seventeen of the gigantic oceanic mammals have died, and scientists are puzzled by the cause, although speculation is rife. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration only about 450 right whales are left alive; when 17 of their number expire the situation verges toward the existentially catastrophic.

John Bullard of NOAA, views the threatened existence of right whales of such momentous crisis he feels that regulators in the United States and Canada are required to step in, because if nothing is soon done to help their recovery, they simply will not manage on their own to recover, and the planet will lose another important species whose presence at the moment in such scarce numbers is already rare.

A North Atlantic right whale dives, near a New England Aquarium research boat. Photograph: Alamy

Marine mammal researchers are doubly concerned that the year 2017  has been  a poor reproduction year, and added to that the high rate of mortality, the prognosis presents as beyond grim. Scientists estimate that roughly 100 breeding female North Atlantic right whales are now left to contribute what they can to the swiftly diminishing pool. Females have been dying at greater rates than males in a species decline that has accelerated since 2010.

The proliferating presence of ever-larger sea-going vessels is certainly one of the  reasons these giant marine species are facing extinction. It's a hugely uneven contest when an immense steel-hulled vessel challenges the right-of-way of a living creature. The sounds emitted by ocean-going vessels confuse and disorient whales. Military vessels' use of sonar equipment generate sound waves that assail the whales with high-decibel sound for hundreds of miles causing whales to attempt to escape the sounds with often deleterious results when whales become beached.

At least 14 right whales have been found dead in Canadian and U.S. waters this year. At least 11 of those were found in Canadian waters and it's not clear whether some of the carcasses that washed up in Newfoundland had drifted from where they were first spotted in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. (CBC)

Fishing vessels setting out their fishing gear are frequently cited causes of the death of whales as a result of gear entanglement. Giving birth in temperate southern waters, the animals then travel to New England and Canada in spring and summer, their traditional feeding grounds. Every one of the 17 deaths occurred off the coasts of New England and the Canadian Maritimes.

Recent scientific studies offer other hypotheses. One, published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports points to whales moving about far more than has been previously assumed, with some scientists suggesting that whales could be venturing far from traditional protected areas searching for food, and in this manner placing themselves in harm's way.

Yet another study published in the journal Endangered Species Research recounted that scientists found whales that suffer long entanglements in fishing gear produce hormone levels indicating high stress, revealed by studying their  feces. That stress impacts negatively on reproductive capacity, should they survive the entanglement event.

The development of a long-term plan to monitor the right whale population trends and habitat, and to study the impact of commercial fishing on right whales has been recommended in protection of the species, an initiative of a five-year NOAA review.

A rare North Atlantic right whale calf lies dead on a beach in Chatham, Massachusetts in 2016. Photograph: AP

Illegal Asian Wildlife Trade on the Menu

"Legal trade stimulates demand, confuses law enforcement efforts, and opens a huge opportunity for laundering illegal products, which is why ivory markets are now being closed globally."
Scott Roberton, director, Wildlife Conservation Society, Asia program

"When fingers are pointed at China about their tiger farms, they tend to point the finger back at the U.S. and say, 'They have as many tigers as we have, why are  you not criticizing them'?"
Leigh Henry, senior policy adviser, World Wildlife Fund

At the Kings Romans complex in Laos, tigers roam cages. Photograph Adam Dean, The New York Times

It seems rather lunatic, and likely because it is certainly immoral, yet across the United States an estimated five thousand tigers are held in petting zoos and even as attractions at truck stops. Most unbelievably they are also privately owned by people who seem to feel that a tiger out of its natural element will do just fine as a pet living somehow in their backyards. The kind of stupidity and hubris exhibited by people who don't appear to be capable of thinking beyond their own vain conceits is mind-boggling. But they're not on the menu.

On the other hand, there is yet another dimension to the keeping of these large cats in confinement, away from their natural habitat, and that is for the purpose of entertainment yes, but also as culinary stars in the East, where jaded tastes require a pick-me-up such a placing rare animal meat on the menu. As unlikely as it may seem, there are those people living in the East whose 'refined' tastes include a yen for tiger meat on their plates.

In Laos, a casino operated and owned by Hong-Kong-based Kings Romans Group comes complete with hotels, a cockfighting and bullfighting ring, a shooting range, shopping center and a zoo. This leisure entertainment complex is located in an area named the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. As for the zoo, it is claimed by conservationists that it is in fact a holding centre, a farm where animals are raised for slaughter.

Throughout Southeast Asia such farms are commonplace, where big cats of noble lineage are kept, illegally butchered for a profitable industry comparable in illegality, harmfulness and profitability to the global drug and arms trades, alongside that of human trafficking. All of which speak volumes for the sensibilities and morality invested by nature in human beings.

At Kings Romans, restaurants feature plates of bear paw, pangolin (on the endangered list) and sauteed tiger meat. Tiger wine is also available for the discerning food-and-wine aficionado. "The place is just a mess. Pretty much anything goes", commented Debbie Banks, with the Environmental Investigation Agency in London, who in 2015 with the group Education for Nature-Vietnam issued a report.

Kings Roman Group casino, Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. Photographs by Adam Dean for The New York Times

From that report the world could have learned that meals, medicine and jewellery produced from tigers, leopards, rhinoceroses, bears and elephants -- all protected species -- were being sold openly in the economic zone, spurring the Laotian government to stir itself to raid a few businesses. Little, however, changed beyond that "cosmetic effort", reports Ms. Banks.

In Laos, an estimated 700 tigers are held on farms, with thousands more believed kept throughout Southeast Asia. There are over 200 breeding centers in China where an additional 5,000 to 6,000 tigers are kept. Contrast that with the fact that fewer then four thousand tigers remain in their wild natural setting. It has been rumoured from trusted sources that some Laotian politicians are involved in the farms.

All Southeast Asian nations signed on to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), in effect agreeing that tigers can be bred, but only for conservation purposes. Conservationists have a stock of evidence that zoos and farms serve as fronts for commercial big cat breeding in Laos and other Asian countries.

Two tiger farms in China are supported by government investment. In China there are government officials who feel that such facilities should be legal, on the basis that their presence relieves pressure mounted to hunt wild animals for their body parts and organs. An investigation that took place in 2008 revealed that half of 78 wildlife farms surveyed launder animals caught in the wild.

That investigation by Vietnamese officials in tandem with the Wildlife Conservation Society, was augmented by a later 2016 study of 26 Vietnamese wildlife farms which found that each and every one took part in laundering; presenting animals as being farmed when in fact they were caught in the wild.

A tourist at Thailand's Tiger World, Photograph by Adam Dean for The New York Times

Plundered and Endangered

"I will use (Dante's) tusks to hunt the people who kill elephants to learn what roads their ivory plunder follows, which ports it leaves, what ships it travels on, what cities and countries it transits, and where it ends up."
"Will artificial tusks planted in a central African country head east or west toward a coast with reliable transportation to Asian markets? Will they go north, the most violent ivory path on the African continent? Or will they go nowhere, discovered before they're moved and turned in by an honest person'?"
Bryan Christy, National Geographic investigative reporter

Each pair of tusks represents one dead elephant ... Quartz, Africa

Those are the questions that Bryan Christy, a lawyer who turned to the journalism profession, recognized recently as National Geographic's Explorer of the Year, asked himself. He ended up having a far better idea, after his journey with a pair of credibly fake elephant tusks, understanding the nexus between illegal ivory poaching, the demand from Asian sources for ivory despite elephant ivory's protected status, and one of Africa's most perniciously vicious criminal enterprises.

Bryan Christy concocted a trial, planning on planting fake elephant tusks embedded with tracking devices, to determine who might take them and where they might be taken to, to get a more complete and reliable picture of routes taken by smugglers dedicated to filling orders by clients as unscrupulous as they are, undeterred by the reality that intelligent creatures whose welfare is a concern for the international community are being slaughtered at an unsustainable rate to satisfy an illegal trade.



Mr. Christy enlisted the aid of taxidermist George Dante for the creation of fake elephant tusks which had to be sufficiently convincing to pass the scrutiny of experienced poachers. Then he turned to Quintin Kermeen, an animal tracker, to help conceal tracking devices within the fake tusks. And then, he set out with the tusks carried in a suitcase, taken with him on a trip to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. At the airport an official thought something suspicious appeared on an X-ray machine and ordered the suitcase opened.

Producing a letter of explanation meant to certify the artificial nature of the tusks, he was met with skepticism and ended up arrested, his belongings confiscated. "I unzip my suitcase to expose two fake tusks and hand him [official in Tanzania] letters from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Geographic certifying that they're artificial."
"A crowd gathers. Officials are pointing fingers and arguing. Those looking at the tusks think I'm an ivory trafficker. Those looking at the X-ray screen, which shows the trackers inside, think I'm smuggling a bomb. After more than an hour of animated debate, they phone the airport's wildlife expert. When he shows up, he picks up a tusk and runs his finger over the butt end. 'Schreger lines', he says. Exactly, I say, 'I had them' ..."
"He points a finger at me, and yells, 'You are a liar, b'wana!' In ten years he's never made a mistake, he says: The tusks are real. I spend a night in police custody, where I'm given a desk to sleep on. National Geographic television producer J.J. Kelley takes the floor in the waiting area. He asks for water for me and is led out of the building. When he returns hours later, he has three chicken dinners and several bottles of beer, paid for by the police chief. The three of us eat together (the police chief, a Muslim, leaves the beer to us). In the morning, after officials from Tanzania's Wildlife Division and  the U.S. Embassy arrive, I'm released."

The Tanzanian officers waved him off at the airport, and he congratulated them for doing precisely what their positions as wildlife defender-conservationists mandated that they do, in holding him in suspicion  until they were certain that he was not a smuggler. Mr. Christie did manage to plant his artificial tusks on the black market in the Central African Republic at a small village along the major ivory route that smugglers are known to use, from the Garamba National Park to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Sudan.

As he anticipated, the tusks were taken up and ferried north along the prior-identified route, from central Africa to Darfur where the civil war continues to rage. "My artificial tusks sit motionless for several weeks, a pair of tear-shaped blue dots on my computer screen, which displays a digital map of the eastern corner of Central African Republic. Then, like a bobber in a fishing hole, a nibble. They shift a few kilometres. Suddenly they move steadily north, about 15 kilometres a day along the border with South Sudan, avoiding all roads. On the 15th day after they began to move, they cross into South Sudan and from there make their way into the Kafia Kingi enclave, a disputed territory in Darfur controlled by Sudan."

Mr. Christie had heard from the grapevine, including from direct witnesses, among them Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) defectors, that terrorist chief Joseph Kony and the LRA see huge value in elephant poaching since the proceeds they realize go a long way to financing their reign of terror as they cross national borders across Africa to kill, to rape and to kidnap defenceless villagers, including among them children who are forced to join their parties, the girls as sex slaves, the boys as nascent fighters-in-training.

Kony's own hunting parties are known to have slaughtered elephants in national parks like Garamba, according to investigators that Mr. Christy interviewed. The LRA trades the ivory to the Sudanese Armed Forces and receives in exchange, weapons and ammunition. "So far, they've [his artificial tusks] travelled 965 kilometres from jungle to desert in just under two months. Their path is consistent with the route Kony's defectors tell me ivory takes on the way to the warlord's Kafia Kingi base" [in Darfur]. They're in a place 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the ambient temperature. So perhaps they've been buried in the backyard."

Imperiled survivors: A herd migrates across Chad, once home to tens of thousands of elephants. After a surge in poaching, only about 1,000 remain. (Kate Brooks) smithsonianmag.com

"Ivory operates as a savings account for Kony" remarked Marty Regan, with the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Conflict & Stabilization Operations, in a conversation with Bryan Christy.