The Worst Year for African Elephants

While Southern Africa faces its biggest loss to rhino poachers in recent history, Africa's elephants are now also under increasing threat.

While Southern Africa faces its biggest loss to rhino poachers in recent history, Africa's elephants are now also under increasing threat, as 2011 has seen a record number of large ivory seizures globally. According to TRAFFIC this is a sharp rise in illegal ivory trade since 2007, with most of the the large seizures of illicit ivory over the last 12 months being from either Kenya or Tanzania.

Although official confirmation of the volume of ivory involved in some cases has not yet been registered, what is clear is the dramatic increase in the number of large-scale seizures, over 800 kg in weight, that have taken place in 2011— at least 13 of them. This compares to six large seizures in 2010, whose total weight was just under 10 tonnes. A conservative estimate of the weight of ivory seized in the 13 largest seizures in 2011 puts the figure at more than 23 tonnes, a figure that probably represents some 2,500 elephants, possibly more.

The most recent case to come to light was of 727 ivory pieces discovered on 21st December concealed inside a container at the port of Mombasa, Kenya, and destined for Asia. "In 23 years of compiling ivory seizure data for ETIS, this is the worst year ever for large ivory seizures—2011 has truly been a horrible year for elephants," said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC's Elephant expert. Milliken manages ETIS (the Elephant Trade Information System), the illegal ivory trade monitoring system that TRAFFIC runs on behalf of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

ETIS holds the details of over 17,000 reported ivory and other elephant product seizures that have taken place anywhere in the world since 1989. "The escalating large ivory quantities involved in 2011 reflect both a rising demand in Asia and the increasing sophistication of the criminal gangs behind the trafficking. Most illegal shipments of African elephant ivory end up in either China or Thailand."

According to Milliken, the smugglers appear to have changed from using air to sea freight. In early 2011, three of the large scale ivory seizures were at airports, but later in the year most were found in sea freight. In six of the large seizures in 2011, Malaysia has been a transit country in the supply chain, a role that TRAFFIC first drew attention to in 2009.

Large-scale ivory seizures, 2001-2011

Year	No. of Large-scale Seizures	Wt of Large-scale Ivory Seizures (kg)
2001	5	7,062
2002	6	19,539
2003	3	4,421
2004	2	2,750
2005	2	4,742
2006	6	16,442
2007	2	2,152
2008	0	-
2009	8	19,314
2010	6	9,798
2011	13	23,676*
-	-	* estimated, provisional figure
-	TOTAL	109,898

Large scale ivory seizures in 2011

Seized	Month in 2011	Number of ivory pieces	Actual/estimated weight (kg)
Kenya	December	727	2575
Kenya	December	465	1647
Malaysia	November	-	1400
Vietnam	November	-	1100
Tanzania	September	1041	1895
Hong Kong	August	794	1898
Malaysia	August	405	2974
Malaysia	August	664	1587
Malaysia	July	695	2000
China	May	707	2234
Thailand	April	247	2033
Kenya	March	115	1304
Thailand	February	118	1026

Kruger National Park Elephant Poaching Statistics

2000-2013 - For 14 years there were no Elephants killed in Kruger National Park
2014 - 2 Elephants poached
2015 - 22 Elephants poached
2016 - 46 Elephants poached
2017 - 67 Elephants poached
2018 - 71 Elephants poached
2019 - 31 Elephants poached
2020 - 16 Elephants poached