2024-01-13 - Beijing, China.
A recent study published in the journal eLife has uncovered new findings on the development of dextrous trunks by indigenous elephants. According to Dr. Shi-Qi Wang, a senior author of the research, the evolution of mandible structure in the ancient Egyptian herbivory Prosecis has been influenced by multiple eco-adaptations. The paper, published in eLife on November 28, 2023, explores the possible co-evolution of the mandible and nose in early elephantiforms.
2016-12-13 - Beijing, China.
China is set to announce when it will close its legal ivory carving factories, 18 months after pledging to act. Last year, the world’s largest market for both legal and illegal ivory said it would shut down commercial sales within the country. But did not set a timeline. At the time, conservationists described the announcement as the “single greatest measure†in the fight to save elephants from poaching. Wildlife advocates have since urged Beijing to get on with the job.
2016-11-01 - Beijing, China.
A man was sentenced to four years in prison and fined 40,000 yuan ($5,903) on Tuesday for smuggling ivory, a Beijing court announced. Beijing No 4 Intermediate People´s Court sentenced the man, surnamed Liu, on Tuesday morning, saying that he was found smuggling 52 products made of ivory in his suitcase at Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport in June 2014. The value of the ivory was more than 423,800 yuan, the court said.
2013-12-05 - Beijing, China.
Despite being the largest market for illegal ivory, China has agreed to label the trade of elephant ivory as a serious crime along with 30 other countries at a summit in Botswana. The deal is proposing a cooperative, multi-national effort to prevent the killing of thousands of elephants, caused by the lucrative ivory trade, in which China buys 70% of the world´s illegal ivory.
2013-12-02 - Beijing, China.
The CITES office in China has released details of a number of cases involving ivory importing and trading. In the most recent case 8 people accused of illegal ivory trading received prison sentences of between 3 and 15 years. The recent case involved the import of 3.6 tonnes of ivory between 2010 and 2012.
2013-11-13 - Beijing, China.
Meng Xianlin, deputy director of China´s Endangered Species Import and Export Management Office said that China, which has been making prestigious products from elephant ivory for almost 5,000 years, has taken most stringent regulatory measures on ivory trade. China does not ban domestic ivory trade, but it sets a ceiling for the amount of legal market consumption at five tonnes each year.
2013-01-13 - Beijing, China.
They say that the 4 elephants arrived at the end of November 2012. Two went to Taiyuan Zoo, one of which has subsequently died. The other two reportedly went to Xinjiang Tianshan Safari Park. There are apparently still another 14 elephants waiting to be exported and we have to try and stop this from happening
2012-03-03 - Beijing, China.
Armed with tips from animal welfare activists, I recently went on an ivory hunt with my Chinese assistant, Yang, in an antiques market in Beijing. Activists say China´s growing purchasing power is driving global demand for products from vulnerable animals, everything from elephant ivory to rhino horn.
2011-02-10 - Beijing, China.
CHINA is driving demand for smuggled ivory from Africa, leading to a surge in the killing of endangered elephants. An international ivory trafficking operation saw a Beijing-based smuggler offering undercover reporters three pairs of recently-arrived tusks with a price tag of $64,000. Asked if he could supply more, he replied, "Don´t worry about that. If we can do a deal today, then next time I have some good ivory, I´ll call you." He said his uncle works in West Africa and uses cont...
2008-10-26 - Beijing, China. Dinah Gardner
There are fewer than 300 wild elephants left in China, so when Jeremy McGill, an American tourist, stumbled across a group of adults earlier this year in a nature reserve in Yunnan province, near the border with Laos, he whipped out his camera and started taking pictures. It almost cost him his life.´"I was alone when I came across the four elephants," he said. "One scooped me up into his mouth and bit me. My body was folded in half, my head between my knees, and then the elephant spat me out a...
2008-08-18 - Beijing, China. Dominique Patton
In a cosy workshop filled with the smell of fresh wood chip, neatly arranged tables and well-worn carving tools, Fang Fu Zhai reminisces about his days working with ivory. “Only the best people were picked to carve ivory. If you were chosen, you had to move out of the main workshop to an area where they kept an eye on the piece. They were afraid of it being stolen.†Mr Fang seldom gets his carver’s hands on ivory nowadays. Since the ban on the global ivory trade almost 20 year...
2008-07-17 - BEIJING, China.
China defended its ivory policy on Thursday after conservationists criticized a U.N. panel's decision to allow the country to import elephant ivory from African government stockpiles. The vote this week by the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, qualifies China for a one-time auction because it has dramatically improved its enforcement of ivory rules. But some environmental groups disagreed, saying that China had over a dozen years lost track of 121 tons of iv...
2008-06-05 - Beijing, China.
Paintings by elephants? Yes! And the huge mammals with their powerful trunks and floppy ears have even had a showing of their own, in Beijing. The elephant's trunks are applied as distinctive brushes. It takes a long time to train an elephant in the refinements of high art. Many pachyderms sought inspiration for their works from the upcoming 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The show is organized by the Thailand-China Friendship Association. The elephant is to Thailand, what the panda is to China, a...
2008-01-28 - Beijing, China.
A wild elephant in southern China attacked an American tourist by tossing him with its trunk, causing the man to suffer from fractured ribs and stomach injuries, an official said Monday. Jeremy Allen McGill, who teaches English in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, was found unconscious by a security guard around dusk Thursday at the "Wild Elephant Valley" nature reserve in the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan province.
2007-08-30 - Beijing, China.
A once drug-addled elephant fed heroin-laced bananas by illegal traders will soon return to the wild after being weaned off his addiction through methadone and round-the-clock care. Big Brother, a bull elephant that once lived peacefully with his herd near the China-Myanmar border in Yunnan province, was caugh by traders in 2005, the China Daily said on Thursday. To control it so that it could lead the herd to where they wanted, the traders kept feeding it bananas laced with drugs, the paper sai...
2007-06-24 - Beijing, China.
Baby elephant Migara, a gift of friendship from Sri Lanka to China in February this year, celebrated his sixth birthday at the Beijing Zoo Saturday. With a red ribbon on head, the male elephant received birthday wishes from both Chinese and Sri Lanka children, as well as delicious bananas from its raiser. Migara was presented as gift by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to the Chinese people on Feb. 26 to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties of the two countries...
2007-02-26 - Beijing, China.
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa landed in China this morning for a six-day state visit that coincides with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The President presented a five-year-old Sri Lankan elephant, Migara, to the Chinese government as a gift to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. The baby elephant is finding a new home at the Beijing Zoo.
2007-02-25 - Beijing, China.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who left for China last night, will hand over a Pinnawela baby Elephant to China at a ceremony today to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties between Sri Lanka and China. Here the baby elephant, named Migara, which is already at the China Zoo is seen attending a rehearsal yesterday prior to today’s ceremony.
2007-02-16 - Beijing, China. Xinhua
A total of 67.45 kilograms of ivory products was seized from the luggage of a female passenger from the Democratic Republic of Congo at Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday. The female passenger, flying from Addis Abba to Beijing, chose to go through the nothing-to-declare lane of the customs upon her arrival in Beijing. She was found to be carrying half-finished mahjong sets, bracelets, necklaces and other ornaments made of ivory when customs officers examined her luggage. Anti-smug...
2006-07-01 - BEIJING, China.
Twenty years ago, Xishuangbanna had only 80 wild elephants compared to some 300 today. Last year three villagers were killed by elephants around nature reserves in Xishuangbanna in the southwest province of Yunnan. Crops belonging to 12,000 families were also destroyed. Wildlife officials are planning "dinner halls" of banana plantations and sugarcane planted several kilometres from villages to entice the animals away, So far, 70 ha (170 acres) have been set aside.
2005-12-13 - Beijing, China. Meera Selva
Across China, new shops are opening for hundreds of thousands to buy items that only a generation ago were beyond their reach. Ivory is one of them. "On a recent visit to China, I found twice as many shops selling ivory products than I saw only a few years ago," said Esmond Martin, a conservationist who has tracked the global ivory trade. Chinese companies are making their mark, building roads in Ethiopia, buying up the Sudan's oil and relaunching Sierra Leone's tourism industry.
2005-07-20 - BEIJING, China.
A recent study predicts that more male Asian elephants in China will be born without tusks because poaching of tusked elephants is reducing the gene pool. Research by Zhang Li, an associate professor of zoology with the college of life sciences at Beijing Normal University, discovered that the gene for tusklessness is spreading among the endangered species in its habitat in Yunnan Province of southwest China, said China Daily.
2005-07-18 - Beijing, China.
More male Asian elephants will be born without tusks because poaching of tusked elephants is reducing the gene pool, Chinese researchers say. The tusk-free gene, which is found in between 2 and 5% percent of male Asian elephants, has increased to between 5 and 10% in elephants in China, says zoology researcher Associate Professor Zhang Li, from Beijing Normal University.
2005-03-16 - Beijing, China. People's Daily Online
A delegation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) recently completed a visit to China, during which they investigated the protection of Asian Elephants and trade of ivory in China. The delegation came to the conclusion that China had made great efforts at protecting Asian Elephant population and habitats, standardizing the management of ivory processing and trade, severely cracking down on illegal smuggling and trade of ivory etc. and had...
2005-03-07 - BEIJING, China. Xinhuanet
China has taken measures to protect Asian, or Indian, Elephants and their wild habitats in thepast years, which helped stabilize the number of the species in the country. China now has 150 to 250 wild Asian Elephants living in Yunnan Province, the southwest of the country, according to the State Administration of Forestry.
2004-11-01 - Beijing, China. Zhang Guanghua, Voice of America
Chinese officials have been unable to curb its flourishing illegal ivory trade, despite signing the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora in 1980, which bans killing elephants for trade purposes. Since 1990, China has held the dubious title of the world’s largest importer of illegal ivory. Their inability to stop importation coincides with a flawed record in domestic wildlife protection.
2004-10-14 - BEIJING, China. Xinhuanet
The Asian elephant is the largest terrestrial mammal in Asia. Although many thousands of domesticated Asian elephants are found in Southeast Asia, this magnificent animal is facing extinction in the wild. China is trying to alleviate the situation by establishing an Asian elephant protection corridor in the south of the country, along its border with Laos.
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