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.
2023-08-16 - Wuhan, China.
Born on June 26, 2022, the male elephant marked the first time that the zoo successfully bred an African elephant. The calf's father, named A Hai, and his mother, named A Nan, came to Wuhan in 1997 from Hainan province. Both of them grew up together at the zoo and are now 27 years old. In September 2020, A Nan got pregnant and after a 22-month pregnancy period, gave birth to the calf at the zoo.
2023-03-15 - Jinan, China.
An Asian elephant named Yaqi at Jinan Zoo in East China's Shandong Province died of multiple organ failure on Monday, the zoo announced, breaking heart of netizens. Yaqi would no longer embrace the spring together with us. His departure breaks heart of everyone who loved him," a notice released by the zoo read. Yaqi was an Asian elephant born on June 14, 2020.
2021-10-21 - Kunming, China.
Yaming, an Asian elephant in the zoo, gave birth to a male Asian elephant calf on Oct. 15, 2021. The new member is in good health and in the period of immune isolation and protection with his mother, unable to meet the public temporarily.
2021-07-08 - Xishuangbanna, China.
The young calf named Yishuang is the fifth elephant to be born at the park's breeding centre within the approximate 900acre valley that's home to hundreds of the giant mammals. A park spokesperson said Yishuang was born on December 22, 2017 and is developing well after becoming the fifth calf born at their breeding centre.
2021-06-24 - Kunming, China.
In the past month, Ming Qingzhong, a university professor in Yunnan, has been closely monitoring 15 wild Asian elephants that have traveled 500 kilometers north from their habitat in the south of the province. Ming and his team from the Tourism and Culture Industry Research Institute at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics in Kunming, the provincial capital, have proposed building an Asian elephant national park, aiming to better manage and restore the giant creatures' habitats. "Such a na...
2021-01-16 - Yunnan, China.
At the Xishuangbanna Tropical Zoo, an Asian elephant named Ya Long also gave birth to a baby weighing 95.4 kilograms on January 14, after 21 months and 19 days of pregnancy. "It took the baby elephant about 20 minutes to get up. Now, its breathing and other physical signs are normal," said Ji Yang, a veterinarian of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Zoo.
2021-01-02 - Beiiing, China.
Seventeen people have been jailed -- including two for life -- for running China's largest ever ivory smuggling ring, moving millions of dollars of tusks from west Africa into the mainland's vast domestic market. A court in the southern city of Guangzhou on Tuesday handed long prison terms to 17 people involved in smuggling over 20 tons of ivory worth more than 1 billion yuan (US$156 million).
2020-10-20 - Xishuangbanna, China.
According to the local forest authority, human deaths and injuries from wild elephant attacks in Xishuangbanna have soared since 2016. In 2019 alone, 12 people were killed by wild elephants in the prefecture, compared with 33 over the two decades through 2010. So far in 2020, seven people have died in clashes with wild elephants.
2020-10-20 - Pu'er City, China.
A baby Asian elephant was rescued on October 17 after it got trapped in a pond in Pu'er City, Yunnan Province. Forest service center staff members discovered the elephant at around 22:30. After freeing the baby, they treated its bruises and returned it to its mother.
2020-10-19 - Xishuangbanna, China.
Xishuangbanna, the southern-most prefecture in China's Yunnan province, is known as a safe haven for wild Asian elephants where hundreds of the giant animals live in the sprawling tropical rainforests. But balancing modern human activities with protection of wildlife has never been easy. For some people in Xishuangbanna, coexistence with the wild elephants is becoming more and more challenging, or even fatal.
2017-01-01 - Bejing, China.
China says it will ban all domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017, closing down the world’s biggest ivory market in a move wildlife conservationists believe will help curb elephant poaching in Africa. The announcement deals a blow to a global ivory industry sustained in large part by Chinese demand, and comes after years of international and domestic pressure on Beijing to interdict a trade that has threatened the extinction of wild African elephants.
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.
2015-11-12 - Bejing, China.
After years of defending and supporting a legal domestic trade in ivory, China made a big announcement in September: It’s shutting down the trade. The United States is, too. Together, the presidents of both countries have made an unprecedented public pledge to put a stop to all ivory trading—legal and illegal.
2015-11-09 - Zhaotong, China.
An Sinomastodon praeintermedius skull fossil, dating back to six million years, was discovered in Shuitangba in Zhaotong City in China. The recent discovery suggests the species originated somewhere in the Yunnan province or in nearby areas.
2014-05-17 - Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong has begun destroying its 29.6-metric-ton stockpile of confiscated ivory. On Thursday authorities in the semi-autonomous Chinese city crushed and incinerated a ton of seized ivory in an action they hope will send a message to poachers and traffickers. Conservationists welcomed the move but said more must be done to address the demand side of the issue.
2014-05-04 - Xishuangbanna, China.
At a time when tens of thousands of elephants across Africa are being slaughtered to feed the Chinese appetite for ivory, it turns out the best place to be a wild elephant may be here in the tropical forests of southwest China. Over the past two decades, the number of Asiatic elephants in Yunnan Province in China has roughly doubled, to nearly 300, thanks to government-financed feeding programs, wildlife education efforts and a strict elephant protection law unmatched anywhere else in the world....
2014-02-20 - Kunming, China.
A zookeeper died in an elephant enclosure on Wednesday afternoon in southwest China´s Yunnan province, a source at the zoo said. The man, 46, was found dead at about 4:30 p.m. He had injuries to his head, according to the zoo of Kunming, the provincial capital. It is not yet known whether the man had been attacked by an elephant. The cause of the accident is being investigated.
2014-02-09 - Xishuangbanna, China.
Two tourists were injured by a group of wild elephants at a scenic spot in China´s southwestern Yunnan Province, local officials said today. The incident took place at the Wild Elephant Valley in the Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna yesterday when the elephants trying to cross a river attacked a family of five.
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.
2013-12-03 - Hongkong, China.
When Hong Kong intercepted yet another huge shipment of illegal African ivory in early October, it added to a growing headache for authorities: What exactly do you do with one of the world’s biggest stockpiles of elephant tusks?
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.
2013-11-07 - Hongkong, China. Samuel Chan
Hongkongers have the chance to see more than 200 pieces of mammoth tusk carved by ivory master carver Chu Chung-shing and his 100-strong team at a free show at the Convention and Exhibition Centre today and tomorrow. Chu has been using the tusks of the prehistoric creature, which became extinct more than 10,000 years ago, as a substitute for African elephant ivory ever since a transnational ban on the ivory trade was imposed in 1989 to protect the African elephant.
2013-07-19 - Hong Kong, China.
More than 1,000 ivory tusks, mainly from baby elephants, were seized by Hong Kong customs in their biggest haul in three years, officials said on Friday. The tusks, which weigh over two tons and are worth more than 2 million dollars, were discovered at the city´s main port in a cargo container from the African country of Togo.
2013-03-25 - Shanghai, China.
On Wednesday, customs officials said two airline passengers were arrested at Pudong International airport for attempting to smuggle rhinoceros horn and ivory items worth over 5 million yuan ($805,000) into Shanghai, according to the Shanghai Daily. A press release from Shanghai Customs said that the two passengers were carrying 11 rhinoceros horn products and over 30 items made of ivory, Global Times reports.
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
2012-10-21 - Hong Kong, China.
Customs officers have made a record seizure of smuggled ivory - with the discovery of more than 1,200 elephant tusks and a batch of ivory ornaments worth more than HK$26 million - during a joint operation with Guangdong authorities. The consignments, weighing more than 3,800 kilogrammes, were found in two containers shipped to Hong Kong from Tanzania and Kenya.
2012-03-08 - Hangzhou, China.
A MAN who bought more than 10 kilograms of ivory and six scales of pangolins worth more than 220,000 yuan (US$34,826) during a trip to Angola may face more than five years in prison on charges of wildlife smuggling. The construction company employer surnamed Tan argued he purchased African ivory, listed as a legal commodity in Angola, as gift for his friends rather than for resale, according to the trial at the Intermediate People´s court in Hangzhou, capital of east China´s Zhejiang...
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.
2012-01-05 - Jinghong, China.
Police have seized 93 suspected ivory products in southwest China´s Yunnan province after a raid on stores located near the region´s wild elephant habitat, local officials said Thursday. Police searched 293 stores in the city of Jinghong on Dec. 28 and found the suspected products in four stores, the officials said. The raid was part of a crackdown on illegal ivory trading, which has flourished in recent years in some of China´s border regions, the officials said. China banned ...
2011-11-16 - Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong Customs officials Monday smashed a smuggling case and seized 33 rhino horns, 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 ivory bracelets with a total value of about US$17.4 million. The contraband ivory and rhino horns were hidden inside a container shipped to Hong Kong from South Africa. Acting on a risk assessment, Customs officers selected a container for inspection that was declared to contain 63 packages of "scrap plastic" from a vessel arriving from Cape Town, South Africa.
2011-11-06 - Xishuangbanna Dai, China.
Local police confirmed the death of Cao Xiaoer, a resident of Xinshan village in the prefecture, was caused by a wild elephant, said a statement issued by the prefecture government´s information office. Since 1991, wild elephants in Xishuangbanna have attacked more than 140 people and destroyed 50,000 tonnes of grain, local forestry authorities said one year ago.
2011-10-31 - Kunming, China.
China and Laos have signed an agreement to jointly build another cross-border nature reserve in order to better protect the endangered Asian elephant, reports Xinhua news agency quoting local authorities as saying. The second reserve will cover 20,000 hectares of forest in China and stretch across 35,000 hectares in Laos, according to the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve Administration.
2011-09-19 - Hong Kong, China.
A long-dormant threat to Africa´s elephant population is back with a vengeance, thanks to rising demand for ivory from newly affluent Chinese consumers.Reflecting this demand, ivory prices in China have soared to as high as US$7,000 a kilogram in 2011 from US$157 a kilo in 2008, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nongovernmental organization based in London. Estimates from other researchers and NGOs put ivory prices in China as low as US$300 to US$750 a kilo, which neve...
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...
2010-10-27 - Bejing, China.
Zoos and parks across China will be banned from putting up shows of animal performances for extra profits, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said in a notice Tuesday. The notice explains while China´s zoo industry has experienced rapid development, a few profit-driven zoos were found improperly caring for the animals or even involved in gross neglect in some cases.
2010-09-21 - Hubei, China. Zhang Qian
Fossils of large teeth were found at Li Jiahe Village, Xuan´en County of Hubei Province, according to Hubei Daily. After primary certification, researchers believe the fossil belonged to an elephant that lived about 50,000 years ago. The fossils are being stored at Xuan´en Museum at present. The local culture station, which first received this news, found that the fossil was white color. The fragments of the fossils were noticeably lighter than the surrounding rocks when they were pi...
2010-09-14 - Hong Kong, China. Sonya Bryskine
More than 1.55 tonnes of elephant ivory tusks were seized in Hong Kong last week, worth $HK10.85 million ($US1.4 million), making it the largest shipment in a decade. Hong Kong customs intercepted the load containing 384 tusks, which were packed in two containers declared as dried anchovies. The ivory is believed to have entered Hong Kong via Malaysia, the Citizen reported.
2010-09-10 - Anhui, China.
A 3.34-meter-long ancient ivory fossil were found at Zhang Changying Village, Mengcheng County of Anhui Province on the afternoon of Sept 8. After primary certification, researchers believe the ivory fossil belonged to an ancient elephant that lived about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. The fossil was buried 5 meters under the ground, and the thickest part of it reaches 22 centimeters. And judging from the ivory, it could be an adult elephant.
2010-09-10 - Hong Kong, China.
Hong Kong customs officers had seized over one and a half tonnes of smuggled elephant ivory worth $HK10.9 million ($A1.41 million) shipped from Tanzania, they said Friday. The 384 ivory tusks, weighing a total of 1.55 tonnes, were found Thursday inside two containers labelled as "dried anchovies" at the Tsing Yi container terminal, the Ports and Maritime Command said in a statement.
2010-08-13 - Hong Kong, China.
Stumped by a ban designed to save elephants from extinction, Hong Kong´s master carvers turned to a long dead species that left thousands of tonnes of frozen ivory in Siberian mass graves.Mammoth tusks, intricately carved to depict anything from devotional Buddhist scenes and teeming wildlife to bizarre erotic fantasies, now make up most of the ivory for sale in the city.
2009-12-13 - Shanghai, China.
CHINA and Laos have signed an agreement to jointly build a cross-border nature reserve to better protect Asian elephants and other rare animals, an official said yesterday. Tang Zhongming, deputy director of the state-level Xishuangbanna Natural Reserve Administration, said the reserve covers 31,300 hectares of forests in China and another 23,400 hectares in Laos.
2009-11-05 - Zhaotong, China.
A team of more than 10 Chinese and foreign archeologists have been examining the mastodon fossil site in Zhaotong prefecture, which consists of at least three complete skeletons, according to a Dushi Shibao report. One of the fossilized tusks found at the site is 2.6 meters long and weighs more than 150 kilograms. The fossil was discovered by local farmers who were digging up brown coal.
2009-08-25 - Xishuangbanna, China.
The breeding base, mainly aiming at protecting, rescuing and multiplying the wild Asian elephants, successfully protects the species diversity and promotes harmonious development between human and animals.
2009-06-24 - Hong Kong, China.
Law enforcement officials investigating the source of confiscated ivory (605 elephant tusks) in Hong Kong had no clue where the stash originated before leaving Douala, a port city in Cameroon. DNA technology, however, was able to verify that many of the tusks once belonged to forest elephants that lived in southern Gabon, near the Republic of Congo border. Extracting elephant DNA from confiscated ivory could be an important tool to take wildlife investigations a step farther and to stop poaching...
2009-04-12 - Hunan, China.
It looked like a normal birthday party with a cake and pink balloons -- but the birthday boy was an endangered Asian elephant. Pamai celebrated his 18th year in style Saturday at Changsha Zoo, in the capital of Hunan Province. His super-sized cake contained more than 100 kilograms of fodder and 30 kilograms of fruit and vegetables. The celebration was also used to highlight the plight of wild Asian elephants. More than 30 college students came to the party to show their dedication to protect wil...
2009-04-11 - Hunan, China.
Elephant lovers are being sought by the Changsha Zoo in Hunan province to help celebrate the 18th birthday of Pa Ke, an Asian elephant. In addition to a large birthday cake made of apples, watermelons and other fruits, Pa Ke will wear a red outfit at the party. The zoo hopes to find 10 people who are 18 years old to help at the party. Pa Ke, who has lived in Changsha for seven years, has grown to 3.3 meters from 2.8 meters. It weighs more than four tons, a ton more since he moved to the zoo seve...
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...
2008-10-19 - Kunming, China.
An Asian elephant who was cured of heroin addiction in southwest China has been declared unfit for the wild, local zoo keepers said on Sunday. Four-year-old male Xiguang and five other elephants became the targets of illegal traders at the China-Myanmar border in March 2005. Among the beasts, Xiguang, was fed with bananas smeared with heroin by the smugglers who intended to snare the animal. The elephants were captured by police two months later. Four of them, including Xiguang, were later sent ...
2008-10-17 - Hunan, China. Sharon Lee
An elephant with a blocked intestinal tract was rescued and relieved after more than seven hours of treatment at Changsha Zoo in Hunan province on Sunday. After honey helped reduce swelling in the Asian elephant's stomach, the 3.2-m-tall specimen finally passed a stool weighing 7 kg with a length of 40 cm and a diameter of 20 cm. The 17-year-old elephant, Pa Mai, had fallen to the ground in pain several times on Sunday afternoon before 20 zoo staff moved it indoors for treatment. Changsha Zoo im...
2008-09-04 - Kunming, China. Sun Yunlong
An Asian elephant who became addicted to drugs after eating a banana smeared with heroin is headed back to Kunming after a three-year detoxification program in China's southernmost Hainan Province. The 4-year-old male elephant, Xiguang, became addicted in March2005. He was among six elephants lured by animal smugglers along the Sino-Myanmar border. They used the bananas as bait for the animals, which were being brought into China's Dehong Autonomous Prefecture of Dai and Jingpo nationalities. Po...
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...
2008-03-21 - Guangxi, China.
Forest police in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region intercepted over 790 kilograms ivory worth 36 million yuan from a truck headed toward Nanning on Wednesday. It was the largest amount of smuggled ivory ever confiscated in the region, China News Service reported. Police found more than ten crates of ivory covered with crumbs, for a total of over 270 sections from 139 complete tusks, one of which is 1.83 meters long. Chang Min, team leader of the forest police, said the force sent police out to pa...
2008-02-15 - Yunnan, China.
In addition to sharing a border – and the Mekong River – with Laos, Yunnan province also shares Chinas last herd of Asian elephants, which in recent years has dwindled to only 400 elephants. The herd lives in nature reserves near the border between China and Laos. This week the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department met with their counterparts from Laos in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture to discuss ways to protect the endangered Asian elephant, which falls under China's grade-one prot...
2008-02-14 - Yunnan, China.
China and Laos reached an agreement to protect wild endangered Asian Elephants that live along the border between the two countries, during their annual meeting, held currently in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, Xinhua reported yesterday. According to the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department, the two countries agreed on four items -- to promulgate animal protection knowledge to villagers; to tighten controls over hunting guns and their activity; to plan an agenda for c...
2008-02-09 - Chuncheng , China.
An elephant has killed a man in a Chinese nature reserve where an American tourist was earlier severely injured, the state news agency Xinhua said. The animal attacked Zeng Shaoping on Wednesday as he returned home after celebrating the Lunar New Year with friends, the agency said, quoting the local Chuncheng Evening News. Two of his friends raced to the scene when they heard trumpeting noises, and found him lying on the roadside. An American living in China was severely injured by an elephant i...
2008-02-03 - Kunming, China. Yao Minji
Yunnan Province is renowned for its breathtaking natural beauty where rolling mountains covered in large colorful tropical flowers provide a picturesque backdrop for tourists keen to discover the area's unique history and culture. But visitors should not expect to be awestruck on first arriving in Yunnan's provincial capital of Kunming. A typical medium-sized Chinese city going through rapid economic development, Kunming's characteristic historic architecture has been knocked down to make way fo...
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.
2008-01-27 - Kunming, China.
An American tourist was seriously injured after he was apparently attacked by wild Asian elephants roaming in a nature reserve in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Thursday, officials confirmed on Sunday. Jeremy Allen McGill, who teaches English at Huazhong Agricultural University in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and arrived in Xishuangbanna for sightseeing on Wednesday, was under intensive care at the central hospital in the Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna, the foreign affairs...
2007-12-20 - Changchun, China.
At the beginning of this year, Mr. Ren, a citizen of Changchun City in northeast China's Jilin Province, found an extraordinary stone while working in a sandpit near Dong'antun. His workmates thought that it was just an ordinary stone and suggested throwing it away. However, Ren was convinced that it was a fossilized bone. The stone is about the size of a man's palm and it was cracked in two places. "At first, when I saw the lower part of the stone, I thought that there should be an upper part j...
2007-11-29 - Guangdong, China. Liu Fang
Ivory carving is a time-honored craft for centuries in south China's Guangdong province. The craft reached its acme during the Ming and Qing dynasties. For many years the ivory trade was brisk. Then in the late 1980's that trade came to an end as an international ban was imposed on trading ivory. Then, local craftsmen began seeking a new medium for their artistic creations. Zhang Minhui in Guangzhou, chose ox bones.
2007-11-19 - Hong Kong, China. Nishika Patel
Growing consumer spending power in south China has been fueling the illegal trade of endangered Southeast Asian pangolins and African ivory, making Hong Kong a crucial strategic hub. Statistics obtained by The Standard from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department show that the amount of imported ivory seized in Hong Kong rocketed from 26.8 kilograms to 4,027.9kg between 2004 and last year, while pangolin seizures jumped from 1,005.5kg, or 939 carcass heads, to 2,037kg, or 6,478 ca...
2007-09-14 - Guanzhou, China.
China has wrapped up an historic five-day exchange with law enforcement officers from five ASEAN countries to address one of the region’s major crime issues jointly. The China-ASEAN Wildlife Law Enforcement Co-operation exchange in Guangzhou and Shenzhen aimed to strengthen regional co-operation in the fight against wildlife crime. Eight officials representing police, Customs and environmental agencies from Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines joined Chinese counterpart...
2007-09-07 - Xuancheng, China. He Shan
Sealed away from the outside world for millions of years, a mountain cave located in Xintian Town, Xuancheng City, southern Anhui Province has recently been excavated and classified by archeologists as a prehistoric cave. It harbors a trove of animal fossil bones and vessels. A huge crescent fossil bone weighing two kilograms was unearthed during the discovery. Experts have verified it as an Asian elephant tooth, the first one of its kind to be excavated from southern Anhui Province.
2007-08-31 - Yunnan, China.
The China Daily is reporting that a bull elephant from Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan has recovered from a serious heroin addiction it picked up as a victim of illegal elephant trading. The elephant, nicknamed "Big Brother", was fed heroin-laced bananas in order to make it easier to control him and his herd, which they led westward to Dehong, near China's border with Myanmar.
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...
2007-05-02 - Shanghai, China.
A woman performs with an elephant during a show as part of the week-long May Day Holiday activities at the Shanghai Wild Animal Park in Shanghai May 2, 2007.
2007-04-10 - Guangzhou, China.
Hussein Yahya Al-Asri from Yemen went on trial in the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court in south China's Guangdong Province on Monday on charges of smuggling ivory. Al-Asri, an 27-year-old businessman, was charged after customs discovered 60.73 kilograms valued at 3.5 million yuan (0.45 million U.S. dollars) in his luggage at the Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou on June 7, 2006.
2007-02-27 - Wuhan, China. Donald
A young girl was injured at Wuhan Zoo in central China on Sunday when an African elephant, in retaliation to abuse from a group of tourists, hurled a stone towards the mob, striking the girl in the face. The 13-year-old elephant, named Ahai, was being subjected to taunts from tourists and was being pelted with stones, mud and plastic bottles, according to an unnamed spokesman with Wuhan Zoo. Ahai, who has lived in the zoo with his friend A'nan for seven years, curled up a stone in his trunk and ...
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...
2007-02-12 - Nanning, China.
A male elephant in Nanning, capital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, traveled thousands of miles to marry a female elephant in Sichuan Province recently. Xing Xing, a 10-year-old male elephant at Nanning Zoo, was old enough to marry, but did not have a mate. The zoo posted advertisements looking for one on the websites of other zoos and finally received a response from the Bifengxia Zoo in Ya'an, Sichuan Province, which had an adult female elephant in need of a spouse.
2007-01-19 - Jinan, China.
"Altogether, seven endangered animals now have difficulties in finding a mate, and most of them are male," zoo manager Wu Kongju said. They include rhinoceros, black ape, musk deer, elephant, golden monkey and zebra. "If an elephant wants to go on a journey to mate, it is impossible to find a cage and truck big enough to transport it," Wu said as an example. Liya was brought from Beijing Zoo to mate with Yakun in May 2006. The two finally fell in love in September. According to Wu, the major rea...
2007-01-18 - Yunnan, China.
A herd of seven wild elephants are seen at the Wild Elephant Ravine in a forest park in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province January 17, 2006. Wild elephants are seen at the Wild Elephant Ravine in a forest park in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province January 17, 2006.
2006-12-14 - Yangzi, China.
The fate of the baiji reminds me of the recent book by Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. For millennia, elephants roamed as far north as Beijing and throughout the Chinese heartland and in fact could still be found in regions south of the Yangzi basin as recently as the 14th century. Elvin argues that the 'retreat' of the elephants, "from northeast to southwest, was the reversed image in space and time of that of the economic development and environment...
2006-11-29 - Yunnan, China. Chuncheng, Evening News China Daily
A female tourist from Yunnan Province was badly injured when four elephants attacked her on a road neighbouring a nature reserve in Xishuangbanna over the weekend. The woman was resting with her tour group at the side of the road when the four elephants attacked. Experts said such attacks were rarely reported and that the elephants may have been frightened by someone else nearby.
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.
2006-06-09 - Shanghai, China.
A 46-year-old animal keeper was killed accidentally by an elephant in a safari park in Shanghai, east China, on Thursday, sources with the safari park confirmed on Friday. Li Guohua, the animal keeper, was suddenly thrown away by an Asian elephant using its trunk when he was helping veterinarians to treat this ill elephant at about 8:00 p.m. Thursday.
2006-05-10 - Hong Kong, China.
Elephant tusks smuggled in a shipping container have been seized by customs officials in Hong Kong. The 3.9 tonnes of tusks from Cameroon, worth about 8 million Hong Kong dollars (about €805,500), were the largest such seizure “in recent years,” Hong Kong Customs said in a statement. Officials couldn’t say when the last big seizure was. Officers found the tusks in a concealed compartment in a shipping container that was declared to be carrying timber from the West African nation of Camer...
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.
2005-10-14 - Xinhua, China.
Wildlife observers are being trained in southwest China's Yunnan Province to monitor and protect the critically-endangered Asian elephants that roam virgin forests in the western and southern parts of the province. The training program, scheduled for Oct. 10-15, is sponsored by MIKE (Monitoring of Illegal Killing of Elephants), an international environmental protection system that protects elephants from ivory poachers.
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.
2005-01-07 - Shanghai, China.
A 53-year-old Shanghai resident thought he was rescuing cultural relics when he bought two Chinese ivory carvings at a Paris auction and brought them back home. But rather than thank him, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court yesterday sentenced Zheng Songqing to two years in prison with a probation of two years and fined him 15,000 yuan (US$1,807) for violating the country's laws on ivory trading.
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.
2002-07-19 - Yunnan, China.
The Chinese government will spend 50 million yuan (6.02 million US dollars) on building an Asian elephant breeding center in southwest China's Yunnan Province, to better protect the wild creatures from extinction. China began breeding Asian elephants in 1994 in the zoo at Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province. Six Asian elephants have been born there so far.
2001-05-11 - MACAU, China. CNN
Macau marine police have seized nearly 92 kg of ivory, including tusks believed to have come from a baby African elephant. Five full tusks and five pieces of tusk, weighing a total of 91.95 kg, were discovered in a wooden crate at Macau International Airport, a marine police spokesman said.
2000-07-14 - Guangxi, China.
Chinese archaeologists have discovered well-preserved fossils of the Asian elephant dating back about 50,000 years to 100,000 years in a mountain cave in Pubei County of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The archeologists believe that the fossils were those of Asian elephants that lived in the late period the Pleistocene.
1999-01-22 - Zhengzhou, China.
The central Chinese city of Zhengzhou is mourning the death of a much-loved elephant, called Luwen, at the local zoo. The BBC's Carrie Gracie in Beijing: "Daily health bulletins made top news on local television" Thirty keepers and vets from across China struggled to save her, but the 25-year-old Burmese elephant died of stomach problems after lying on her side for a month.
2024-07-10 - Dublin, Ireland.
Dublin Zoo has confirmed that a third elephant has tested positive for a virus which has left two other elephants dead over the last ten days. Eight-year-old Avani and seven-year-old Zinda died from E...
2024-06-18 - Houston, United States. Houston Zoo
Tess, a 40-year-old Asian elephant at Houston Zoo, has been given the first-ever dose of an mRNA vaccine created by virologists at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) to prevent the deadly elephant endot...
2024-04-26 - Blackpool, United Kingdom.
The latest round of pregnancy tests at Blackpool Zoo has revealed that two of its elephants are expecting babies. Mother and daughter Noorjahan and Esha are both pregnant and due to give birth in late...
2024-04-02 - Sen Monorom, Cambodia.
There was sad news from Mondulkiri Province, with the death of 2 year old elephant “Chi Pich” being announced. Sources from the Elephant Livelihood Initiative Environment Organization (ELIE) said ...
2024-03-26 - Kochi, India.
Popular tusker Mangalamkunnu Ayyappan, 55, 55, died at Mangalamkunnu in Palakkad on Monday. The elephant owned by M A Haridasan had been under treatment for the past few months.
2024-03-23 - Kegalle, Sri Lanka.
The 76th elephant calf was born at the Rambukkana Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage on March 20.This baby elephant was born to 32-year-old she-elephant Shanthi and 19-year-old Pandu at the Pinnawala Elepha...
2024-03-23 - Pretoria, South Africa.
In the ongoing efforts to curb poaching and snaring of animals within the Zimbabwe and Mozambique borders, South African National Parks (SANParks) is working to create more partnerships with neighbour...
2024-03-15 - , United States.
After weeks of voting and thousands of submissions, the Toledo Zoo has officially chosen the name of their precious baby elephant and we're personally thrilled about the news! Ladies and gentleman, Ki...
2024-03-09 - Tucson, United States.
A baby elephant was born at Reid Park Zoo. The zoo said Semba, the facility’s African elephant matriarch, gave birth to a 265-pound calf around 3:31 a.m. Friday, March 8. Reid Park Zoo said the calf...
2024-03-04 - Copenhagen, Denmark.
A female baby elephant in Copenhagen Zoo has been named Chin after the Tha Chin river in central Thailand. The elephant was born last week in the Danish zoo. The zookeepers, who take care of the young...
2024-02-29 - Alappuzha, India.
Evoor Kannan, the elephant known for his murderous rage and with a history of killing two mahouts is in a bad mood these days. He had been gentle under the care of his former Mahout Sharath Parippally...
2024-02-20 - Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands.
African elephant Punda has become the mother of a healthy elephant calf after a 22-month pregnancy. This is the third calf born in the Safari Park Beekse Bergen k in four months. Never before have thr...
2024-02-15 - Pittsburgh, United States.
The zoo said Tsuni died Thursday after a sudden, brief battle with elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV). Her EEHV was detected through routine blood testing on Feb. 8, even though she presente...
2024-02-15 - Seoul, South Korea.
The oldest female elephant in South Korea passed away Tuesday at a zoo in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, at the age of 59, zoo officials said Thursday. The female elephant, named Sakura, had suffered fr...
2024-01-30 - Bangalore, India.
The Bannerghatta Biological Park is brimming with excitement as it welcomes a delightful new addition—a baby boy elephant calf. This adorable arrival brings the elephant count in the Bannerghatta zo...
2024-01-27 - Guruvayur, India.
Elephant Kannan, of the Guruvayur Devaswom Elephant Camp, a nine-time winner of the festival-related elephant race, has passed away. His demise was around 5:30 pm on Saturday. The tusker's age at the ...
2024-01-27 - Koh Nhek, Cambodia.
Villagers found a baby elephant dead in Koh Nhek district, Mondulkiri province in the middle of the forest on January 26, 2024, suspected of being shot. Mondulkiri Provincial department of environm...
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, t...
2024-01-13 - Pekanbaru, Indonesia.
The Tesso Nilo National Park in Pelalawan District, Riau Province, again lost one of its Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) after a poacher allegedly killed it for its tusks. The 46-year...
2024-01-11 - New York, United States.
In a narrow but sprawling curatorial space at the uptown museum, The Secret World of Elephants, now opened, tells the story of elephant species and their relatives through life-size models, videos, gr...
