Importing Elephants

Elephants are having a hard time in africa, being slaughtered for ivory in huge numbers, threatened with extinction, and where they are surviving in some numbers,threatened by drought.

With a bit of care, elephants can live and breed quite well in Britain, should we import a fair few quite urgently, and what arrangements can be made to give them permanent homes?

Surveys have shown that the elephants in captivity live only half as long as those (if left alone) in the wild. It is therefore better they are left in their own environment. How one combats the poachers and the weather is quite another question. On balance rather than let them go extinct it would be wiser to keep some in captivity and hope for better times - but the costs of that should not outweigh the costs of securing them in the wild. You tell me?

Depends what you mean by captivity. Quite a lot of big animals from africa and south america are kept in semi-captivity in UK zoo/parks. Indian elephants have been kept in captivity, or domesticated, for centuries, and get on all right. African elephants might be less domesticatable, maybe, but given winter shelter and someone to look after them in the summer, would probably be quite manageable, and no worse than some people or other animals, people are regularly killed by cattle.

Elephants are highly intelligent and given good mangement, fairly co-operative. Average lifespan of wild elephants is plummeting as they are being illegaly killed for ivory in large numbers. The future for elephants is probably living in closer relationship with humans, and a free range type of arrangement, always with care and management looks like the only option really.

It's a two way relationship, people benefit from having elephants around. In general principle, we ought to do what we can to preserve them, and their future in africa looks perilous. Importing and looking after a moderate number of them in the UK seems like a good thing all round. There is quite a lot to find out and prepare, so the sooner we get on the case the better.

African elephants are being killed by organised gangs for their ivory faster than they are being born. The mathematics add up to extinction.

The species will disappear in the next 20 years unless we (the West) take sufficient numbers away to safety and prosper with a breeding program. We should have already (if we care enough) fortified appropriate areas to preserve them and if we haven't it shows we don't care enough. The other side of the coin is that all species evolve and die out in time and should we therefore 'mess with nature' albeit in this instance the species being 'disappeared' before their allotted time.

Elephants, Rhinos etc need armed guards if they are going to survive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39194844

Rhino and elephant gold, swiftly followed by tiger and snow leopard silver. Man wants - man strives to get and it won't matter to what lengths they have to go. Yes - we need to fortify the enclosures as the greedy get going and the desperate tag along.

Unless some drastic or clever ways are used to save animals like rhino, elephant, giraffe etc, they will go the way of the dinosaurs, extinct within a hundred years or so. Elephant tusks can be dyed pink which reduces the value of the ivory. Safe safari parks and zoos in Europe might be the best bet.

Where is 'safe'? The cost of safe outweighs the value unless the income for viewing the 'rarest' beasts on the planet is commensurate. 'Roll up, roll up. See an 'elephant' -. £100 quid a peek. Which will only happen when there are virtually none left. Until then - don't hold your breath -.

It is inevitable that the most sought after will disappear first - and soon as man strives for survival amongst his rapist brother. I can't save the world and man can't save himself - let alone the animals.

Sad. But that is what comes of evolving an intelligence -.

Today, Her Majesty the Queen gave an elephant a banana.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5PX7D7U3-c

A photo-shop opportunity and food for the masses and the poor bloody elephant gets a tit-bit. It helps to sell newspapers and gives breathable air to the plight of our wildlife - what can be bad about it -!

All good, opening a new elephant place at Whipsnade zoo.  

https://www.zsl.org/centre-for-elephant-care

Things are getting desperate now for elephants, with predictions of their extinction within a few years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-41899103
The UK has room for a lot more elephants, best get them while we still can. OK - elephants will be worth a lot of money within a few years, so we should get them while they are cheap and establish breeding herds. They would probably pay their way as an international tourist attraction.

As with people. It would be less costly to keep them in their own habitats than try to create new ones. The African and Asian herds will move North as climate change dictates and 'if' we here in the West are that concerned then we here in the West had better do something about it. If not then we only have ourselves to blame.