Caught a thoroughly depressing story this afternoon on the BBC World Service regarding the imminent demise of the African elephant, assuming losses continue at the present appalling rate. It seems that the elephant population of the continent was looking in reasonably good shape until around 2009. Then a combination of the financial crisis and the increasing influence of the Chinese in Africa, in combination with the trade in ivory with its deep roots in Chinese culture, turned the tide against Jumbo and his chums. It's taken less than a decade to place the elephant in real danger of extinction on the continent.
In my list of favourite living things I reckon trees and elephants vie for first place. And it's a terrible thing to say, but when I hear news like today's, when it's abundantly clear which species is to blame for what's going on, I reckon homo sapiens (so ironically named) are in last place, a long way behind the nearest contenders. (I suppose that'd be the cockroach for entirely prejudiced reasons. Though I must say, the sheer resilience of the blighters has gone a long way to winning a kind of very grudging admiration from me.)
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