Biology 1001A Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Allopatric Speciation, Reproductive Isolation, Zygote
12 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The international ban on the trade of ivory took effect in 1989, there were approximately a million elephants in africa and about 7. 5 percent of those were getting poached to death every year. Today, less than half of them are left, and the elephants are continuously decreasing still losing about 8 percent of elephants to ivory poachers. To make themselves less appealing to their greatest enemies (poachers), elephants all over the world begun selecting against having tusks at all. For example, it used to be that only 2 to 5 percent of asian male elephants were born without tusks. By 2005, it was estimated that the tusk-less population had risen to between 5 and 10 percent. Tusks are weapons and tools, and they"re needed to dig for water and roots and to battle for the love. Nature decided poachers are a greater threat to the elephant"s existence than its diminished ability to forage.
