Battle for the Elephants Episode 1: Battle for the Elephants

The War on Tusks

B

y Tara D. Sonenshine

Tusks up–in some parts of the world that means good luck; a saying full of irony considering the unfortunate plight of elephants today. Depending on your culture, elephants also convey strength, power, wisdom and patience. Whether in India, Africa or other lands, they are important and meaningful—and today they are receiving the global attention they deserve.

This month President Obama issued an executive order targeting the illegal trafficking of elephant tusks (and those of rhino horns and other products) promising a $10 million effort and a national presidential task force to increase anti-poaching efforts.  Building on what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began in 2012 as a global crackdown on illicit trade of wildlife, the President vowed to rein in the growing black market for illegal animal products, which experts estimate has reached an annual business of 7-10 billion dollars.

The threat posed by this lucrative trade is not only environmental. It is a security and counterterrorism issue for the United States and many other countries. There is mounting evidence of links between wildlife crime syndicates and terror groups, with traffickers bankrolling rebels and their militias, conducting military-style assaults on elephants and terrorists funding their violent agenda through the burgeoning market for luxury goods, religious articles, carvings and medicines.

The White House action came as new scientific research opens major possibilities for determining the age of elephant tusks—a key part of the poaching puzzle.  Reported by theProceedings of the National Academies of Science, the research on tracking the age of ivory uses atmospheric nuclear weapons testing residue from the 1950s and 1960s to connect the dots on the age of elephant tusks.  In what is akin to the DNA breakthrough on crime solving, this new research could help law enforcement and other agencies determine when the killing of an elephants occurred—a tool in citing violations of the 1989 ban on African elephant killing for tusks.  The mere fact that carbon footprints from radiation from nuclear testing can be linking to elephant footprints is an astonishing scientific leap that will also help in tracking the numbers of traffickers since estimates of poaching comes from examining elephant carcasses.

The world is waking up to the plain fact that we are losing elephants fast.  National Geographic’s  2012 cover story on “Blood Ivory” detailed a decade of poaching that hit a high in 2011, having the greatest impact in the central Africa region.  According to experts at Columbia University, we have only 400,000 elephants left in the wild.  30,000 elephants are killed each year. A public education awareness campaign must be waged worldwide to target the demand side of the elephant equation. Consumers have to understand that ivory comes from a dead elephant’s tusk and that without an end to the purchase of these products, we simply cannot win the war on trafficking.  Media campaigns like those spearheaded by National Geographic, WildAid, the World Wildlife Federation and hundreds of other conservation groups are critical.  The involvement of Hollywood figures like Jackie Chan have helped the wildlife trafficking issue to gain traction as has the work of athletes like Yao Ming.

In the end, this war will be won through changing hearts and minds—or in other words, public diplomacy.  We need education to reinforce the principle that killing animals is not cool and that the crime of poaching will lead to serious consequences.Whether it is good luck, wisdom or patience, elephants are vital to our planet and must stay front and center in the global mindset until their slaughter is stopped.

Tara D. Sonenshine is former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and helped lead the anti-poaching efforts at the State Department. 

Source: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/10/the-war-on-tusks/

Elephant tusks: the new blood diamonds

NAIROBI, Kenya — Militant groups in Central and East Africa are cashing in on the lucrative ivory trade to fund their operations across the continent, threatening both regional security and the survival of Africa’s endangered elephants.

Demand from increasingly affluent Chinaand Southeast Asian nations has driven a surge in elephant poaching in recent years, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of the animals annually, wildlife monitoring groups say.

But in a new development, armed insurgent groups like Uganda’s brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Somalia’s Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab and Sudan’s Janjaweed militia are joining organized criminal networks as major players in the illicit trade.

More from GlobalPost: Time to ban ivory for good?

The groups are either trafficking tusks internationally for cash, or trading ivory for food and ammunition. Experts say trafficked ivory is now equivalent to conflict diamonds, mined in war zones to fund insurgencies or militias.

“We know how minerals fuel conflicts,” said Kasper Agger, who researches the LRA for the DC-based Enough Project advocacy group, which focuses on raising awareness of genocide and crimes against humanity. “But with the growing prices, ivory is also starting to fuel conflict. We have to see it in that context — that it is equally damaging to regional security.”

President Barack Obama signed earlier this month an executive order establishing a high-level Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking to address what is described as “an international crisis that continues to escalate.”

The executive order states that wildlife trafficking generates “billions of dollars in illicit revenues each year, contributing to the illegal economy, fueling instability and undermining security.”

Welcoming the US initiative John Scanlon, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, said it “sends a powerful message both domestically and internationally on the need to treat wildlife crime as a serious crime on a par with narcotics and arms trafficking.”

Illegal wildlife trafficking is worth as much as $19 billion each year, making it the fourth most lucrative illegal industry after narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

In a March report, the United Nations Environment Program warned that poaching levels in Africa have more than doubled since 2007.

When it comes to ivory, the trade is indeed lucrative.

A kilogram of elephant ivory has a black market price of about $2,200, while a rhino horn will for a staggering $66,000 per kilo, according to the senior director for African affairs at the National Security Staff of the White House.

Somalia’s Al Shabaab militia could be trafficking ivory through Kenya to supply “up to 40 percent of the funds needed to keep them in business,” says the Los Angeles-based Elephant Action League, an advocacy group.

Al Shabaab is an Al Qaeda-affiliated militant group, which at various times has controlled large swathes of Somalia, including the capital Mogadishu. An African Union peacekeeping force is said to have significantly weakened the group over the past two years, depriving Al Shabaab of territory and much-needed revenue.

The EAL says, based on its own investigation, that Al Shabaab's monthly income from ivory at between $200,000 and $600,000, though the figure could not be verified. Kenya Wildlife Service officials support the allegations that the militants hunt for ivory to boost their coffers.

The LRA’s infamous Ugandan leader, Joseph Kony, now issues “direct orders” to subordinates to kill elephants and harvest their tusks, according to an Enough Project report Agger co-authored.

Agger says in early 2012, his organization began hearing rumors that LRA defectors were discussing poaching for tusks, which the group then uses to help supply troops with food and ammunition.

Infamous for its atacks on civilians, mass abductions, mutilation and murder, the LRA has for decades terrorized communities across Central Africa, launching attacks on isolated villages far from government.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo last year, Agger spoke to eyewitnesses who had been abducted and forced to work for the LRA helping carry elephant meat and tusks.

Agger said the tusks were carried overland by a series of porters northwards into Central African Republic (CAR) and then east into Sudan’s South Darfur, where Kony is believed to have found a safe haven under the protection of Sudan’s armed forces.

In the most recent annual report on Central Africa, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the “illegal ivory trade may currently constitute an important source of funding for armed groups, including the LRA.”

Sudan’s own government-backed Janjaweed militias, responsible for atrocities committed in the western region of Darfur over the last decade, are also suspected of involvement in the ivory trade.

International conservationist groups like the WWF blame Janjaweed gunmen for a devastating series of raids on the Bouba N’Djida National Park in northern Cameroon last year, in which hundreds of elephants were killed over a number of weeks.

Earlier this month, just days after Obama signed the wildlife executive order, authorities seized two large shipments of nearly 5 tons of illegal ivory at the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

Kenya’s ports act as transit points for smuggling to Asia, though much of Africa’s illegal ivory comes from the interior — including the DRC, CAR and Uganda.

The size of the shipments is evidence of “a high degree of sophistication that indicates the involvement of criminal syndicates,” said Richard Thomas, communications coordinator for TRAFFIC, a UK-based wildlife trade-monitoring network.

Thomas said the involvement of armed groups as well as criminal gangs was a serious concern. “This is no longer just an issue for the environmental sector,” he said.

 

Source: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/130713/elephant-ivory-africa-kenya-somalia-obama-al-shabaab-lra-uganda

Elephant chased me in Marsabet

[caption id="attachment_191" align="alignnone" width="600"] This is how big the elephant that chased me was.[/caption]

 

When I found an elephant up in Marsabet I got out of the car to take  a picture, and the ears were taking up the whole space on the lens, and it went after me. and I was shocked that it didn't get me, but you can read about it in the book its an interesting story.

Book about elephants in Africa, stop the poaching save the elephants

 

 

The Games end

– A novel that brings awareness to the poaching of elephants, and how if we don’t start saving the elephants they will no longer be with us.

 Elephants are in danger of being extinct, they are being poached for their Ivory. Let’s save the elephant from this massacre that is going on. In my book you will experience the adventure of being all over Africa, as I once did. There is plenty of adventure, there’s romance, and you will learn many great things.

Book about elephants

If you are looking for a book to read about elephants you must read The Games End.

The book is on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here: amzn.com/0615456545

Mount Kenya Safari Club

The Games End – A novel that brings awareness to the poaching of elephants, and how if we don’t start saving the elephants they will no longer be with us.

In “The Games End” there were many scenes in the novel that took took place in the Mount Kenya Safari Club during that time. William Holden left behind the William Holden Wildlife foundation (which is right next to the Mount Kenya Safari Club) and  is now owned by Stefanie powers. She spends a lot of time there, bringing awareness of “The Game” and elephant poaching to make sure these wonderful animals are not hunted.

The famous Mount Kenya Safari Club, which all the movie stars king and queens even the President and Queen of England came to during the 50′s, to see the wildlife.

Hotel El Mirador, the Owner was from Palm Springs CA his name was Ray Ryan, and also one of the owners of the Mount Kenya Safari Club. Unfortunately he was murdered.

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis liked to spend their weekends at the hotel El Mirador, they loved the pool and spend all their afternoons there having fun and making up all of their comics to do next weekend with NBC.

Mount Kenya Safari Club now belongs to Fairmont.

Stefanie Powers and

William Holden

Hermes or Herpes

[hulu id=p525c2eqyzo-djmttiasya width=512]

This clip has just been shown to all of us. Nothing can apply more than what happened to Hermes ad. It is so twisted that it has come forward and it has become huge in the world. The girls are marvelous and the Ben Affleck really is a good actor. The Chinese who contribute to elephant poaching and sell their beautiful Ivory can afford the Hermes Birkin Bags. The bags are priced at around $10,000 and range to even $65,000! While Ivory is priced at $1,700 per pound. Coincidence? So think about all these things, the fun is all there but so is all the bad stuff. We have to save the elephants.

I was in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda) wrote a book about elephants in Africa, its called The Games End, check it out, it’s on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here:
amzn.com/0615456545

Must-read book about African elephants and poaching

The Games End

A novel that brings awareness to the poaching of elephants, and how if we don’t start saving the elephants they will no longer be with us. The novel by author William Gardner, is a novel that talks about the tragedies regarding African elephant poaching. This is important because right now the issue is strong. The Author has been to Africa himself many times and witnessed the tragedies, from which he got the inspiration needed to write the book. The book is about elephants in Africa, and it contains romance and adventure. Its called The Games End, check it out, it’s on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here

Save the elephant
Also check out my website http://thegamesend.com/
and my blog William Louis Gardner

Review: This book is packed with action from start to finish; it opens with the main character Astrid and her faithful servant Mojo, facing a possible flogging and imprisonment from the government. Astrid’s crime was to retaliate when a poacher killed one of her orphan animals, a baby elephant; who she has hand reared. Her father Helmet is trying to keep her out of jail but is scared that he may fail. Mark is in love with Astrid and she is fond of him. He is gathering evidence about an organised gang of poachers, who have government protection from corrupt politicians. Many people want to silence Mark before he presents his evidence.

Clay is a well-known hunter who wants to kill Ahmed the biggest elephant in the country, at any cost. Ahmed is a national treasure and he is protected by the president, who feels a special affinity with the elephant. Tim, Clay’s son, shares none of his father’s bloodthirsty traits.
Jim wants to shoot a film in Africa and needs footage of their biggest elephant Ahmed. He is accompanied by Julia a married woman, who is in love with him. If you like action packed stories, you will love this book as it does not disappoint. If you have an affinity for our diminishing wildlife this book will inform you. I learnt a lot reading this book and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Well done William.

Improve your marketing with the http://hotvsnot.com for free This site is listed under Fiction Directory

Can Elephants swim?

Elephants are very good swimmers.

I was in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda) wrote a book about elephants in Africa, its called The Games End, check it out, it’s on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here:
amzn.com/0615456545

Why are elephants poached and killed for their tusks?

Elephants are poached for the value of their Ivory. Poachers in Africa kill the elephants, who then sell them to the smugglers, and they sell them. Last year alone over 100,00 were massacred, which was a tragedy. They sawed off their tusks, which goes to the upper status people of China who love the carved Ivory and want it in their house. Right now its over $1,300 a pound. China has been purchasing that poached ivory at an alarming rate. If this continues, there will be no more elephants, the day might come where we no longer get to see them, only in the zoos.

-William Gardner

You can check out The Games End. The entire book has to do with elephants, it deals with poaching, adventure, romance, and you will learn many things. The Author has been to Africa himself many times and witnessed the tragedies, from which he got the inspiration needed to write the book. The authors goal is to raise awareness about elephants so that we can prevent poaching, since right now its such a critical issue and the day might come when we longer get to see elephants. Its called The Games End, check it out, it’s on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here:

Africas devastating elephant poaching problem

      At least 86 elephants, including 33 pregnant females, were killed over a single week in Chad, by “poachers traveling on horseback carrying AK-47s and hacksaws,” reports The Guardian.

“Even if the conditions were right, which they are not, it would take more than 20 years for this population to recover,” said Celine Sissler-Bienvenu from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The most recent incident in Chad is just the latest in a growing, troubling epidemic.

How big of a problem is it? Several elephants are killed every hour of every day, says a new report from the U.N. Poachers are the main culprits: “Illicit ivory trade activity and the weight of ivory behind this trade has more than doubled since 2007, and is over three times greater than it was in 1998.” The report also warns that elephants might disappear completely from Central and West Africa if better protections aren’t implemented.

Who is fueling the demand for ivory? Mostly the “rapidly growing economies of Asia, particularly China and Thailand,” says the U.N. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Samantha Strindberg and Fiona Maisels from the Wildlife Conservation Society lament the fact that ivory has become a luxury item:

In China and other countries in the Far East, there has been an astronomical rise in the demand for ivory trinkets that, no matter how exquisitely made, have no essential utility whatsoever. An elephant’s tusks have become bling for consumers who have no idea or simply don’t care that it was obtained by inflicting terror, horrendous pain and death on thinking, feeling, self-aware beings. [New York Times]

Al Jazeera reports that the price of ivory has surpassed $2,000 per kilogram on the Asian black market.

Why hasn’t more been done to stop the poaching? It’s complicated. As Derek Mead at Motherboard puts it, “The trade has spiraled out of control, run by militant groups in Africa and organized crime in Asia, with little fear of serious crackdowns.”

Political instability can make patrolling elephant habitats difficult. “Anti-poaching teams are often poorly equipped and the guards themselves are targeted,” says Celeste Hicks at The Guardian. Between 2006 and 2009, 10 guards were killed in Chad’s Zakouma National Park. The World Wildlife Federation’s Bas Huijbregts tells Al Jazeera that the culprits in this case were likely the “same group of Sudanese poachers who killed over 300 elephants in northern Cameroon in February 2012.”

In Asia, as is noted in the U.N. report, “highly-organized criminal networks operate with relative impunity to move large shipments of ivory off the continent and to markets in Asia.” While regulations preventing the ivory trade do exist in Asia, countries such as China, Thailand and Vietnam need to “urgently and dramatically improve enforcement effort to crack down on illegal wildlife trade in their countries,” says the WWF.

How can these countries better protect the elephants? Earlier this month, officials from the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species called for more heavy-handed sanctions including banning countries that deal in ivory “from all wildlife trade, including hugely lucrative orchid and crocodile skin exports.”

In countries like Chad, where poverty and corruption make stopping poachers difficult, the U.N. report recommends better training and technology paired with “appropriate mandates to allow park rangers to pursue poachers and conduct patrols outside park boundaries,” as well as more international cooperation in apprehending and extraditing poachers. According to AFP, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Chad are taking a small step towards that goal by meeting in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, this week to develop a more aggressive anti-poaching strategy.

Source

The Games End: Elephants, Africa Romance and Adventure

"The Games End"

Hollywood and Africa. This is a website representing the book The Games End:Hollywood goes to East Africa to make a film but struggles with Africanization, intrigue and murder to save the elephant. The film story is a “Moby Dick” theme that is played out with a great elephant, Ahmed, that captures the adventure and romance of the time with its great cast of characters finding them-selves in the African bush working to save the game, but running into opposition every way they turn.

It also brings awareness to the poaching of elephants, and how if we don’t start saving the elephants they will no longer be with us. The Author has been to Africa himself many times and witnessed the tragedies, from which he got the inspiration needed to write the book.

-A Review from the Midwest Book Review of “The Games End” by William Louis Gradner

National treasure is a status that won’t protect one from greed. “The Games End” is a novel about Ahmed, a massive tusk elephant in Kenya who captivated Hollywood throughout the 50′s through 1970′s.  Although he  was ordered to be protected from hunters, the allure of this giant prize would not protect him from those who only  saw only dollar signs.  ”The Games End” is a riveting novel of adventure, highly recommended.

Available on Amazon also as Kindle for $4.99

Baby elephant rescue

Astrid struggles to bring back the life of a baby elephant who’s mother was poached in the bush (Piece taken from "The Games End")

Darkness had fallen by the time they arrived at the lodge. There were cries from the animals as they passed by in the lorry. Something was bothering the animals, thought Astrid. Up ahead the headlights of the lorry shone on a baby elephant in the care of George, an animal attendant, who was trying to make it drink from a bottle of milk.
“It looks like I have a new orphan,” said Astrid as she stopped the lorry and jumped out of the cab. Mark and Molo followed.
“Where did the little packy come from, George?”
“We found her in the bush, Mama. Her mama, she dead.
Poachers.” said George, as he tried to put the bottle in the small elephant’s mouth, but the little one wouldn’t take the warm milk.
“She weak no wanta eat, Mama,” said George.
The baby elephant was about three feet tall. Astrid knew it would be hard for it to survive. She had experience with this size baby elephant before. It seemed too young and needed the potency of mother’s milk. Astrid took the bottle from George and drew some milk from it and put it down the soft little trunk for the elephant to smell, but the little elephant didn’t move. “It won’t live. It needs its mother’s milk. I’ll give it Molo’s formula. It has worked before on these babies.” She looked at Mark. “I feel helpless and sad, Mark, when I can’t save one of these little ones. Those bloody poachers have got to be stopped.”
Mark knelt next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. Astrid said to George. “Stay with her tonight. Keep trying to feed her.” She and Mark started back to the lorry.
“Bwana, some men here today ask for you.” said George.
“What did you tell them?” he asked.
“I no see Bwana,” said George.
“Were they Tanzanian?”
“No. One big one, he have tribal scar on face. He no from here,” said George. Mark and Astrid left for the hotel.
“General Service Unit is onto me.” I shouldn’t stay here tonight.”
“Where will you go? They won’t be back in the dark. Not out here. It’s too remote. Besides you’re inTanzania. They’d have to kidnap you. They can’t arrest you in this country. They have no authority.” Astrid stopped the lorry next to the main lodge.
“Stay in the cab,” she said. “I’m going to check and see if one of the tents is vacant. You can stay there tonight. If they do come back they’ll never look for you there. Not with all the hotel guests here”
Astrid went into the lodge while Mark remained in the lorry. She was back in a few minutes. They drove in front of the long row of tents, looking at the numbers. “There it is. Number sixteen,” said Astrid. She stopped and Mark picked up his knapsack as Astrid lifted up the front cover of the tent to enter. She struck a match and lit the oil lamp by the cot.
Mark took the pictures out of his knapsack and gave them to her.
“These are for P.D. Mnazi inNairobi. Tell him that the General Service Unit are after me. Tell him where I am.” He drew Astrid to him. “Will you stay with me?” he asked, looking into her wide blue eyes.
“I can’t Mark. I’m leaving forNairobiearly in the morning. I still have much to do tonight to be prepared for tomorrow. I’d be bad company. There’s too much on my mind.” She moved away from him.
“Thanks for today. I love you,” he said. Astrid smiled at him.
“You’re sweet Mark and I love you too.” She lifted up the corner of the tent flap and left.
Mark could hear the sound of the lorry as it drove away. She actually said she loved me. I can’t believe it, but she did. What a day this has been, he thought. He blew out the oil lamp by his bed and collapsed on the cot with his clothes on. All he could see in his thoughts was Astrid’s beautiful face as he drifted off into a deep sleep.
 
Astrid drove back to the orphanage. She stopped the lorry in front of where George attended the baby elephant. She picked up a kerosene lamp, lit it and joined George, who still tried to get the baby to drink from the bottle. She sat down next to the small animal who was having a problem breathing. It lay listless making no attempt to move. Thick mucus flowed from its mouth and trunk. She touch its rough hide and the tip of its truck to feel its body temperature. The baby seemed cold to her.
“The baby’s sick. How old do you think it is?”
“Maybe two days, Mama. She stand around dead mama when we find. I think no eat from mama. She sees poachers cut tusks from Mama. I know she feel sad, to see mama be killed so bad.”
“Yes, George, I agree. I miss my Suzy so. She was my pet. She also wouldn’t eat when I found her. I had a terrible time getting her to do so. I remember now. George, go to the kitchen and have Molo give you some corn syrup and bring it back.”
George got up and left. Astrid kept stroking the baby’s trunk.
“You poor hungry little girl. Mama wants you to eat. You must be very hungry. Mama has something wonderful for you to taste. I bet you’re going to like what Mama gives you.” she said stroking the elephant hide around its ears. The elephant didn’t move and its breathing remained the same. Astrid started to sneeze. Her eyes watered. She can felt them puffing and swelling. Damn those allergies, she said to herself. She took a large red cloth from her pocket and blew her nose. She looked up and saw Ingrid in her cage close by. Ingrid jumped up and down and screamed, wanting Astrid to come to her. Astrid got up from the elephant and went to Ingrid’s cage. She opened the door and Ingrid came to her and gave her a sloppy kiss as she hugged her.
“You poor girl. I haven’t forgotten you, Ingrid. Mama has been busy trying to stay out of trouble. Oh, what is going to happen to you, Ingrid, if I go to jail? What is going to happen to all my babies? I’m going to miss all of you,” she said as she looked around at the animals staring at her. I think they know, noting how sad they looked, she thought.
George came back with the corn syrup. She handed him Ingrid and she took the corn syrup and sat down next to the baby elephant’s head. She opened the bottle and poured the thick liquid on her middle finger and inserted it into the elephant’s half-opened mouth as if it were its mother tit. She observed the baby elephant, looking for any movement it might give. Nothing. She pulled out her finger and poured more syrup on it and inserted it again. Nothing happened for a moment or two and then she felt it. Its mouth moved. A slight movement, but it moved. Then she felt its tongue slowing moving, back and forth. It swallowed. She looked up at George. “George, It swallowed.” Astrid petted its head. George smiled at her. “George, give me the bottle. Is it warm?” George nodded. She put the bottle in the little elephant’s mouth and the baby started to suck.
“She is nursing, George. She is going to make it,” she yelled.”

Ever heard of Ahmed the Elephant?

Ahmed the elephant

[caption id="attachment_147" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Kenya's largest tusk elephant, central to the plot in The Games End. Ahmed is stuffed and stands in front of the Nairobi Museum in Kenya . Former President Kenyatta issued a degree to protect him when he was alive.[/caption]

Have you ever seen an elephant with tusks like these? At one time this is how long elephants got to grow their tusks, but unfortunately because of poaching, we are losing what has been one of the greatest animals to walk on this world.

Kenya's largest tusk elephant, central to the plot in The Games End. Ahmed is stuffed and stands in front of the  Nairobi   Museum  in  Kenya  . Former President Kenyatta issued a degree to protect him when he was alive.
The Author has been to Africa himself many times and witnessed the tragedies, from which he got the inspiration needed to write the book. The book is about elephants in Africa, and it contains romance and adventure. Its called The Games End, check it out, it's on Amazon also available as Kindle for $4.99 here:
William Louis Gardner: 9780615456546: Amazon.com: Books

Save the elephant

South African Lion Kings are the most unusual you’ve seen

Elephants love to get drunk under this tree

Mount Kiliminjaro in Tanzania, East Africa

Read my novel The Games End

Elephants have good memory

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Louisiana State University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.  The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.  He got down on one knee, inspected the elephants foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.  Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled.  Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.  Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.  As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing.  The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down.  The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this was the same elephant.  Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure.  He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.  The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same fucking elephant.

This is for everyone who sends me those heart-warming bullshit stories.

Assembly Hall at the Parliament Building in Nairobi, Kenya

Chapter 20 from the Book "The Games End"

In downtown Nairobi a meeting had been called in the mammoth Assembly Hall at the Parliament Building. Minister P.D. Mnazi was standing in front of the packed crowd of MPs.

“These are serious times when our leader’s family continues to exploit our national treasures. Our rain forests are being burned down for charcoal to sell to the Gulf States. This horror has got to stop or there will be no forest left for our children and their children.” A roar came from the assembly. A few of the old MPs exchanged serious looks, whispering to one another as P.D. Mnazi continued with his speech. “Our people died in the forests with a handful of soil in their hands, believing they had fallen in a noble struggle to regain our land. Now that we have it back, our leaders are exploiting it.”

This was accompanied by a strong chorus of boos from some of the MP’s. One said, “He’s gone too far this time. This is treason.”

P.D. continued, “We the government have put good laws in place to stop the illegal poaching and selling of ivory, but how can you stop this illegality when people in high government are taking profit from it, and destroying the very foundation of Kenyan wild life? I have here,” he lifted this hand into the air, “photos of a recent raid of poachers led by one of our ruthless neighbors to the north, the Somalis, who have bedded down with our country’s leaders. One of our own game department personnel took these photos of the illegal buyers in Mombasa. Look, gentlemen! See who this illegal buyer is. Someone we all know in _­Kenya. Someone we respect in our high government. See for yourself! “He handed the photos to the man seated next to him and the photos were passed around the room. They caused a major furor.

“I have nothing more to say. You’re looking at the evidence.”

The photos were now in the hands of Major Darassa and Minister Mafalme.

Minister Mafalme spoke into Major Darassa’s ear. “It’s time to put operation “Hyena” in place. I don’t want to hear the details. Call me when you have the results,” he said

Major Darassa nodded. MP Mnazi walked out of the Assembly and Major Darassa followed a few feet behind.

The Games End on Amazon: www.tinyurl.com/TheGamesEndAmzn

In downtown Nairobi a meeting had been called in the mammoth Assembly Hall at the Parliament Building. Minister P.D. Mnazi was standing in front of the packed crowd of MPs.

“These are serious times when our leader’s family continues to exploit our national treasures. Our rain forests are being burned down for charcoal to sell to the Gulf States. This horror has got to stop or there will be no forest left for our children and their children.” A roar came from the assembly. A few of the old MPs exchanged serious looks, whispering to one another as P.D. Mnazi continued with his speech. “Our people died in the forests with a handful of soil in their hands, believing they had fallen in a noble struggle to regain our land. Now that we have it back, our leaders are exploiting it.”

This was accompanied by a strong chorus of boos from some of the MP’s. One said, “He’s gone too far this time. This is treason.”

P.D. continued, “We the government have put good laws in place to stop the illegal poaching and selling of ivory, but how can you stop this illegality when people in high government are taking profit from it, and destroying the very foundation of Kenyan wild life? I have here,” he lifted this hand into the air, “photos of a recent raid of poachers led by one of our ruthless neighbors to the north, the Somalis, who have bedded down with our country’s leaders. One of our own game department personnel took these photos of the illegal buyers in Mombasa. Look, gentlemen! See who this illegal buyer is. Someone we all know in _­Kenya. Someone we respect in our high government. See for yourself! “He handed the photos to the man seated next to him and the photos were passed around the room. They caused a major furor.

“I have nothing more to say. You’re looking at the evidence.”

The photos were now in the hands of Major Darassa and Minister Mafalme.

Minister Mafalme spoke into Major Darassa’s ear. “It’s time to put operation “Hyena” in place. I don’t want to hear the details. Call me when you have the results,” he said

Major Darassa nodded. MP Mnazi walked out of the Assembly and Major Darassa followed a few feet behind.

Who doesn't want to go on a Safari?

Who hasn't wanted to go on a Safari? From the first page, the reader is drawn into a web of intrigue, conflict and profound moral choices regarding the plight of endangered species and unrestricted personal greed that will lead to their extermination

This is a total trip, one with a twist and edge of your seat ending. All the ingredients for a thrilling movie adventure. Plus the author has described the scenario with all his personal visual memory of the great Kilimanjaro mystic. there’s a touching unrequited love story to boot.

-Paula Stewart 

“Bill Gardner captured on paper what he witnessed in life when traveling extensively through Africa. A lively and enjoyable insight into one man’s understanding of how he interpreted the mystique of the African continent.”

-Foodman

“Having been to Africa and seeing firsthand the spectacle of the animal’s one is privileged to witness you know that you are having the experience of a lifetime. You are drawn back for more. This book confirms your desire. The author provides a vivid view of the country, its people and the predicament the continent finds itself into today. There were moments when I could not put the book down. Very exciting!”

  –  By Jeffery Baumgartner

The Moby Dick Film

“I had this thought in the cab that Anne could come with us to Kenya, Graham. I need a stand-in for my leading lady. She could do the doubling for her,” said Jim.

Anne and Graham exchanged looks. “The money’s good. All expenses. What do you say?”

“Are you asking me or Graham?” said Anne.

“You, of course, Anne.”

“When do you have to have an answer?”

“In a few days.”

“Can you tell me about the film?” asked Anne.

“It has a “Moby Dick” theme. The protagonist hunts down an old large tusked elephant inKenya. The elephant charged as he was trying to shoot it. The hunter missed getting the animal in the heart so the elephant was able to continue the charge. It picked him up and threw him fifty feet. The fall crippled him. He recovered, but was maimed for life. He wanted revenge. He was obsessed about going back to even the score. Every day he thought about killing the elephant. His hate drove his family away. Only his wife faithfully stood by him, but he abuses her for it. He goes back toKenyato hunt down the elephant, but in the end the elephant triumphs by killing him.”

“It sounds like Hemingway could have written it,” said Anne.

“I wrote it. I stole it from Melville. It’s theHollywoodformula picture. After you’ve see a few, they seem the same. ButHollywoodgives the money. They’ve been proven box-office draws.”

Anne looked at Jim with new interest.

“I’d be a fool not to take you up on your invitation. I think I could get my affairs sorted out.”

“Great. Let’s have some champagne to celebrate,” said Jim as he looked around for a waiter.

Anne looked over to the far side of the room and saw someone she knew. She got up from the table. Jim and Graham stood up. “One of my Arab clients is sitting over there,” she continued. “He’s been ignoring my statements. I’m going to asked him if he liked the job. Would you excuse me,” she said as she left the table.

Jim and Graham sat back down. “Graham, what are you doing to me? She’s beautiful. What is your relationship with her?”

“I told you we grew up together. Her family was our landlord. It’s a sad story. Her father, the earl, lost all of the family money gambling. When the creditors took his property it killed him. It was in the family for hundreds of years. There were some rumors that he took his own life. Anne rebelled. She got into the sixties culture. Dope, Beatles, free love, flower child, you name it, she did it. She married an artist. She’s out of that now. She had to go to work. She took a job with one ofEngland’s most revered interior designers and now she’s on her own. I can’t believe she said she’d go with us toKenya. Something’s going on between you two, isn’t it?”

“You said she’s out of her marriage. What do you mean?”

“She’s still married, but her husband, Alex, is a nut. She doesn’t live with him. They have some kind of open marriage. She never talks about it or him.” answered Graham. They looked up.

Anne returned to the table and the waiter arrived with the champagne. She sat down and the waiter opened the bottle and poured their glasses full.

Anne picked up her glass and said. “First, I would like to drink to a very special new friend, to you Jim and to luck with your new film. And to our Kenyan adventure, a magical land of the born free.”

They lifted their glasses for a toast. “ToKenya.”

Anne thought, how am I going to get Alex to let me go?

The Tragedy of the elephant

Put together by: William Louis Gardner

Ahmed The Elephant
Largest Tusk Elephant

Ahmed, Kenya’s largest tusk elephant is stuffed and stands in front of the Kenyan Museum in Nairobi, Kenya. Former President Jomo Kenyatta issued a decree to protect him from the poachers and hunters when he was alive and this is central to the plot of the book: The Games End. ”The Games End” is a about Ahmed, a massive tusk elephant in Kenya who captivated Hollywood through the 1950s through 1970s. Although he was ordered to be protected from hunters, the allure of this giant prize would not protect him those who saw only dollar signs.

It also brings awareness to the poaching of elephants, and how if we don’t start saving the elephants they will no longer be with us. The Author has been to Africa himself many times and witnessed the tragedies, from which he got the inspiration needed to write the book. William Louis Gardner has an additional published book: “Confessions of a Hollywood Agent” available on Amazon.



-Mwai Kibaki, president of Kenya, sets fire to confiscated ivory at the Kenya Wildlife Training School in Manyani, Kenya, Wednesday, July 20, 2011. In a bid to combat the illegal ivory trade in Africa, Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) announced The African Law Enforcement Day by burning 5 tons of contraband ivory at the Kenya Wildlife Training School. (AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)

Source



-Ivory goes up in smoke



-Ivory ashes after they have been destroyed.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AElxLdGWF2U]

Hereis the video of the Ivory being destroyed



These are the ashes, and this the end of the tragedy. Lets hope that in the future we can stop the tragedy.

Stefanie at Mount Kenya

It was Holden, “a man of great fun, depth, and adventure,” who introduced to Stefanie a distinctive and enriching personal obsession in East Africa: the Mount Kenya Game Ranch. His work in the conservation and preservation of endangered species in East Africa began long before the issue became popular, and he pioneered the concept of a game ranch in Kenya. After his death, Powers established the William Holden Wildlife Foundation to carry on with his passion and his legacy to her. She built her own oasis on the foothills of Mount Kenya and lives part time in one of the most magnificent landscapes on Earth.

Mount Kenya is where she goes every year to oversee and take care of the African people, learning to take care of the poor animals that need her care.

In War to Save Elephants, Rangers Appeal for Aid

[caption id="attachment_103" align="alignnone" width="443"] His name is Baghdad, because of the bullet scar in his ear. He lives in a national park in Gabon, and he’s one of only 20 African forest elephants left on Earth whose tusks touch the ground, making him worth about a hundred thousand U.S. dollars—dead.[/caption]

 

“That’s a sad reflection on our planet,” Lee White, head of Gabon’s national park system, said Sunday at a meeting of the World Conservation Congress in Jeju, South Korea, where conservationists are appealing for aid from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as African elephant populations plummet. (See blog posts from the congress.) With international crime syndicates coveting more and more elephant ivory—a symbol of wealth in booming Asia—numbers of the mammal have fallen to “crisis levels,” according to a June report by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The highest rate of elephant poaching since a global ivory ban in 1989 occurred in 2011, with tens of thousands of the animals slaughtered, their ivory shuttled out of West and, increasingly, East African seaports enroute mainly to China but also to other Asian consumer countries such as Thailand.

About 472,000 to 690,000 African elephants—currently classified as vulnerable by IUCN—likely roam the continent today, down from possibly five million in the 1930s and 1940s.

On Wednesday, the IUCN Member Assembly will vote on three proposed motions to increase protection of African wildlife targeted for illegal killing, particularly elephants and rhinoceroses. One of the motions, sponsored by the Game Rangers Association of Africa, would lend aid to park rangers, some of whom are being killed by well-armed poachers. Dozens of rangers have been killed this year in Africa, including 15 in the Kenya Wildlife Service alone. ”We’re going into a phase now where we’re basically at war,” White said. “We’re shifting from biologists being out in these parks to military people being out there.”

Source: National Geographic

Religious Ivory Demand Killing Elephants by Thousands, Report Says

Elephants are being illegally killed across Africa at the highest rates in a decade, and the global religious market for ivory is a driving force. “Blood Ivory,” the cover story in the October issue of National Geographic, offers the first in-depth investigation of this untold story.

While it’s impossible to say exactly how many elephants are slaughtered annually, a conservative estimate for 2011 is more than 25,000. And thousands of those are dying to satisfy religious devotion, their tusks smuggled into countries to be carved into religious artifacts: ivory baby Jesuses and saints for Catholics in the Philippines, Islamic prayer beads for Muslims and Coptic crosses for Christians in Egypt, amulets and carvings for Buddhists in Thailand, and in China—the world’s biggest ivory-consumer country—elaborate Buddhist and Taoist carvings for investors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=a6PDNQsemb0#at=183

Source: National Geographic

Will elephants still be around in 20 years?

Editor’s note: Cyril Christo is a photographer and filmmaker whose documentary, “A Stitch for Time,” was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988. Since 1997, he has worked with his wife, Marie Wilkinson, to investigate and document the relationship between the indigenous human and natural world on five continents. See more of their conservation photography.

(CNN) – At the start of the 1980s there were more than a million elephants in Africa. During that decade, 600,000 were destroyed for ivory products. Today perhaps no more than 400,000 remain across the continent, according to Samuel Wasser of the University of Washington, who is widely recognized as an authority on the subject.

It is a tragedy beyond reckoning and humanity needs to pay attention to the plight of the elephants before it is too late.

In the past few years an epic surge in poaching has resumed the killing, thanks to the penchant for ivory in the Asian market — especially in China, where ivory is now selling for over $1500 a kilo.

Recently, Julius Kipng’etich, the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service,made a plea at the Library of Congress in Washington in an unprecedented appeal for the world to save Kenya’s and Africa’s elephants from the plague of poaching that has in recent years seen the decimation of tens of thousands of them.

Source

Photos: Endangered Elephants in the African Wilderness

What does elephant skin feel like? “It’s rough,” Wilkinson says. “In the morning, the elephants typically come down in the swamps to drink and cover themselves with mud, which is their sunscreen and protects them from ticks.” This elephant is wearing his S.P.F. “With the way he’s lighted,” she explains, “you can see that he’s under the midday sun. It’s very, very hot, hence the importance of the mud.”

Source



“This elephant is in Amboseli National Park, Kenya,” Wilkinson says. “The park is known for its elephant population because it has these huge swamps where the elephants congregate—they drink at least 80 gallons of water a day. The swamps are fed by the water that comes from the snows of Kilimanjaro.” The mountain can be seen in the photograph. “The snows of Kilimanjaro have been receding at an incredible rate because of climate change,” says Wilkinson.

-Souce

“These are male elephants—bulls—from Chyulu Hills in Kenya,” says Wilkinson. “These guys are big and old, and they have big ivory. It’s coveted by the poachers and by the rising middle class of Asia, particularly the Chinese.” Christo explains how they captured the shot: “We walked along one or two of them, on foot, with a Waliangulu hunter named Kaneh (that’s a phonetic spelling) who used to hunt elephants years ago.”

Source

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

   

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is a small, flexible charity, established in 1977 to honour to memory of a famous Naturalist, David Leslie William Sheldrick MBE, the founder Warden of Tsavo East National Park in Kenya, where he served from its inception in 1948 until his transfer to Nairobi in 1976 to head the Planning Unit of the newly created Wildlife Conservation & Management Department. David died 6 months later but his legacy of excellence and the systems he installed for the management of Tsavo and wildlife generally in Kenya, particularly in the sphere of wildlife husbandry and ethics, lives on.

What Is It About an Elephant’s Tusks That Make Them So Valuable?

In Garamba National Park in the northeastern corner of Congo, thousands of elephants are being killed each year for their tusks, their carcasses discarded like hair clippings on a barbershop’s floor.

In a beautiful and brutal report, New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman describes the carnage, both animal and human, in harrowing detail. Last year, he writes, “broke the record for the amount of illegal ivory seized worldwide, at 38.8 tons (equaling the tusks from more than 4,000 dead elephants). Law enforcement officials say the sharp increase in large seizures is a clear sign that organized crime has slipped into the ivory underworld, because only a well-oiled criminal machine — with the help of corrupt officials — could move hundreds of pounds of tusks thousands of miles across the globe, often using specially made shipping containers with secret compartments.” (Although there are many sources of ivory such as walruses, rhinoceros, and narwhals, elephant ivory has always been the most highly sought because of its particular texture, softness, and its lack of a tough outer coating of enamel.)

What in the world could fuel such demand for animal teeth? An ascendant Chinese middle class, whose millions can now afford the prized material. According to Gettlemen, as much of 70 percent of the illegal ivory heads to China, where a pound can fetch as much as $1,000. “The demand for ivory has surged to the point that the tusks of a single adult elephant can be worth more than 10 times the average annual income in many African countries,” Gettlemen writes.

This explains the mechanics. Demand rises, price goes up, and the costs poachers and smugglers are willing to endure increase in sync. But what underlies the demand? Why do so many Chinese people want these elongated cones of dentin?

The comparison to diamonds is commonly made: Diamonds, like ivory, are a natural substance with little inherent value but prized social significance. Desire in richer lands tumbles poorer societies into resource wars and labor abuse. And certainly the modern dynamics are the same. But demand for ivory is something demand for diamonds is not: ancient. And its history as a technology, a material with few peers for centuries, propels this demand even today.

Diamonds, as a cultural symbol, are an invention of the 20th century, the result of a collaboration between Mad Men and De Beers. Ivory, in contrast, has been used and valued for millennia. In China, according to Ivory’s Ghosts by John Frederick Walker, artistic ivory carvings exist from as far back as the sixth millennium BCE, excavated in Zhejiang Province. “By the Shang Dinasty (ca. 1600-ca. 1046 BCE) a highly developed carving tradition had taken hold,” he writes. Specimens from this period are today in museums around the world.

But ivory wasn’t solely prized for its aesthetic value. Ivory’s properties — durability, the ease with which it can be carved, and its absence of splintering — uniquely suited it for a variety of uses. Archaeologists and historians have recovered many practical tools made out of ivory: buttons, hairpins, chopsticks, spear tips, bow tips, needles, combs, buckles, handles, billiard balls, and so on. In more modern times we are all familiar with ivory’s continued use as piano keys until very recently; Steinway only discontinued its ivory keys in 1982.

What do many of these things have in common? Today we make them out of plastic, but for thousands of years, ivory was among the best, if not the very best, option — the plastic of the pre-20th-century world. For some of these items (piano keys being the most prominent example) we didn’t have a comparable alternative until very recently. Walker writes:

Synthetic polymers had been in widespread use on keyboards since the 1950s but found few fans among serious pianists. In the 1980s Yamaha developed Ivorite, made from casein (milk protein) and an inorganic hardening compound, which was trumpeted as having both the moisture-absorbing quality of ivory and greater durability. Unfortunately some of the first keyboards cracked and yellowed, requiring refitting with a reformulated veneer. Clearly there was room for improvement. Steinway helped fund a $232,000 study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, in the late 1980s to develop a superior synthetic for keyboard covers. In 1993 the project’s team created (and patented) an unusual polymer — RPlvory — that more closely duplicated the microscopically random peaks and valleys on the surface of ivory that allow pianists’ fingers to stick or slip at will.

That usefulness, combined with its warm luster and its receptivity to engravings, meant that it gained stature as a luxury good from the get-go. China’s demand for ivory today shows the staying power of a luxury symbol, even if a substance’s inherent qualities have been superseded by new materials.

Where does that leave the elephants of Garamba National Park, their poachers, the smugglers, and a rising China? Is there a way to remarry ivory’s cultural significance to its material one, to instill the idea that ivory is nothing more than an animal’s tooth?

The power of the idea of ivory is immense, and shows no signs of waning. For the elephants that bare them, perhaps the only hope is that the price will go up and up, through greater regulation and greater monitoring, putting ivory once again out of reach for even the middle class. The irony of this is that the side effect of the best way to staunch the flow of ivory and the slaughter of elephants may be the reinforcement of the cultural myth: Make ivory even rarer, even more reserved for only the very few, and esteem for it will only rise.

Source

William Holden Wildlife Foundation

 http://www.whwf.org/

The William Holden Wildlife Foundation Education Center offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience the outdoors in a rare communication with nature often unavailable to them in their own environment. It is essential to build a respect and appreciation for both the flora and fauna and the understanding of their delicate balance. Nature is a renewable resource but only if we assume the responsibility of its protection.

Nearly 300 elephants slain in Cameroon for ivory, government minister confirms

(CNN) – Poachers in search of ivory in northern Cameroon have slaughtered nearly 300 elephants for their tusks since mid-January, according to the country’s minister of forestry and wildlife.

Minister Ngole Philip Ngwese backed up a claim by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) that an armed gang of Sudanese poachers had killed the free-roaming elephants in the Bouba Ndjida National Park, on Cameroon’s border with Chad.

Park officials say many orphaned elephant calves have been spotted, and concerns are high the babies may soon die of hunger and thirst.

One park official, Bouba Jadi, told CNN the deaths are worsening the situation for Cameroon’s already threatened elephant populations. According to official estimates, there are between 1,000 and 5,000 elephants in Cameroon.

Officials on a tour Monday saw at least 100 elephant carcasses. More carcasses are expected to be found in unexplored regions of the national park. A massive crackdown on poachers has been launched, according to officials in the west Central African nation.

“It was common for armed gangs of poachers to cross from Sudan during the dry season to kill elephants for their ivory. But this latest massacre is massive and has no comparison to those of the preceding years,” IFAW official Celine Sissler Bienvenu told a local newspaper, The Voice.

She added that the ivory is smuggled out of West and Central Africa for markets in Asia and Europe, and money from ivory sales funds arms purchases for use in regional conflicts, particularly ongoing unrest in Sudan and in the Central African Republic.

Cameroon shares a porous border with Chad. Armed insurgents from Sudan and the Central African Republic seeking elephants frequently travel through Chad.

Observers in Cameroon have been blaming the raids on poorly trained and ill-equipped park guards, who are pitted against professional gangs of poachers.

-Source

African elephants

Here is a video about elephants out in the wild, with a matriarch with her herd.

http://www.arkive.org/african-elephant/loxodonta-africana/video-12d.html#src=portletV3web

Ringling Brothers Circus' Over-the-Top Cruelty

http://www.ringlingbeatsanimals.com/