Ominous Trends (IMAGE)

Columbia Climate School

Ominous Trends

Caption

A chart from the study shows the lag time between killing of an elephant and the seizure of its tusk (vertical axis), and how that has changed over time (horizontal axis). From 2002 through 2010, it was a year or less. Since then, the lag time has ascended to two or three years. The authors think this suggests poachers are exhausting the resource, and need more time to build up a stockpile before making a shipment. The symbols stand for different regions; Tridom indicates elephants from Cameroon, Gabon or Congo.

Credit

Cerling et al., PNAS, 2016

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