i have a zoo

Chapter 142 Elephant Science Museum

While Qi Ming was busy trimming the alpaca, Zhao Jia just came to the elephant house.

The reason why I came to the elephant house is that there is a newly opened elephant science museum here. As a friend of animals in the zoo, Zhao Jia felt that it was necessary to come and have a look.

Walking into the small exhibition hall where the elephant house is connected, there is a popular science exhibition board on the facing wall, and a two-meter-long, yellowish white ivory is placed on the table as an exhibit.

The huge ivory is very eye-catching at a glance!

A child is reaching out to touch it curiously.

The ivory is not covered with a cover, and it is marked below: "This ivory is a model."

Zhao Jia walked over and subconsciously touched the ivory to feel it.

The display board next to it is dedicated to ivory.

"What can an elephant do with ivory?"

As soon as Zhao Jia walked over, he heard someone asking a friend.

With the thought of exploring, he looked at the popular science information and found that ivory has many functions!
Elephants can use their long tusks to dig up sandy soil to obtain salt and minerals in the soil, or to search for groundwater during the dry season.

During a severe drought, when surface water such as rivers dries up, elephants can use their ivory to dig a hole several meters long, allowing groundwater to slowly seep out of the sand.This function of digging holes to obtain groundwater is very useful for elephants to survive the dry season safely. After the elephants drink the water and leave, other animals will also gather at the edge of the water hole for a drink.If elephants go extinct, many animals may not survive the dry season.

Ivory can also break branches with ivory, and peel bark with one side of ivory. Elephants also have their own side teeth, which are equivalent to human left-handed and right-handed.

And it can help male elephants win the hearts of female elephants.

Well, I was too short-sighted!
Zhao Jia continued to look at the display board, and the next content was a bit heavy.

More and more elephants don't have tusks now.

In an environment without poaching, only 2%-4% of female African elephants will not have tusks.

But because of poaching, elephants with beautiful tusks will be brutally hunted down. The tusks of male elephants are generally larger and heavier than those of female elephants. Therefore, when encountering poachers, male elephants bear the brunt.

When male elephants were hunted and killed in large numbers, poachers targeted female elephants. The female elephants with ivory were killed, and the ones without ivory escaped. Slowly, more tuskless offspring were born.The same is true for Asian elephants. Elephants with long tusks may be caught for work, and the situation without tusks is more obvious.

Elephants choose not to grow tusks in order not to be poached, which is sad and regrettable.

Moreover, elephants do not grow teeth, which not only makes it inconvenient for them to drink water and food, but also affects other creatures that depend on elephants for survival.

This intangible influence will not be truly reflected until many years later.

Zhao Jia continued to look down: "If the ivory falls off, can it grow back?"

The two long ivory tusks exposed outside are actually the front teeth of an elephant!In the mouth are molars.

The outer part is not all, one-third is wrapped in the skull.

There are only two ways to obtain ivory, one is to wait for the elephant to die naturally, and the other is to kill the elephant.

In order to obtain the complete ivory, poachers use extremely cruel means. After hunting the elephant, they cut off the head and trunk so that the ivory can be taken out.Some elephants are not even completely dead when they are harvested for their ivory.

Zhao Jia thought of the unbreathed elephant lying on the ground, with an ugly big hole cruelly dug open on the face, blood was lying out, the nose was cut off and thrown on the ground, the long teeth were taken out, and only the huge body remained. Rotting, flies danced happily among the flesh and blood.

Just thinking about it can't help but shudder, and a disgusting feeling rises in my heart!

In the warehouse of the Kenya Wildlife Conservation Agency, there used to be 132 tons of ivory, which came from 1.2 elephants. Most of them were killed by poachers. The smell of blood in the warehouse is unbearable to look at.

After visiting, someone expresses this emotion: "When you enter the door, you can smell the pungent smell of corpses, as if you see a lot of bones. Seeing such a scene, you will never want to buy ivory and put it at home and wear it on your body. Because you feel like it's so cruel and ominous."

There was no authoritative statistical data on the number of elephants before, but people from all walks of life agree that the number of African elephants dropped sharply from 80 million to less than 130 in the 50s and 40s, and some reports even said it was less than [-].

This is equivalent to almost one hundred elephants dying every day.

Elephant populations are at risk of extinction due to poaching and the ivory trade.

The next question is, should the ivory be destroyed?

One way of thinking is that African countries have a lot of ivory in stock, and destroying it is a waste. If the ivory trade is legalized and there are formal channels to sell ivory, will it be able to combat poaching?The money from the sale of ivory can also be invested in the cause of protecting elephants.

But the ideal is beautiful, the reality is cruel.

After the legal trade of ivory was opened, elephant poaching and black market smuggling increased significantly.

The legal trade stimulates consumer demand for ivory, and the mix of legal and illegal creates difficulties for enforcement.

Therefore, the legal ivory trade case was not passed, and countries around the world have destroyed 300 tons of ivory stocks.

What is embarrassing is that China is the world's largest consumer of ivory, and ivory has become a status symbol for the rich.

But domestic action is also taking place.

At the end of the exhibition board, it reads: "From January 2018, 1, my country will completely stop the processing and sales of ivory and its products, and completely ban the trade of ivory. It is illegal to buy and sell ivory products.

Only elephants need and have the right to own ivory! "

After Zhao Jia finished reading the display board, his blood boiled with enthusiasm, especially the last sentence, which was sonorous and powerful, and he wished to yell along.

The kid next to him is also looking at the display board seriously!

At the bottom is a cartoon display card for the children, telling the children to reject the ivory trade in the form of character dialogue.

An adult said "ivory is a symbol of good taste", and a child said "I prefer them alive".

"I didn't kill the elephant." "Although you didn't kill it, buying ivory is tantamount to supporting the killing!"

After Zhao Jia finished watching the ivory display board, he wandered around the elephant viewing hut again.

I was a little curious when I saw a tourist who didn't know what to look at behind the door.

Is there a sign behind the door?Who can see behind it?
When people left, I went to take a look.

There is no display board on it, but a doggerel is written crookedly in black charcoal: "Reporters can't make money for interviews, and elephant disasters happen year after year. When will the imperial decree arrive and slaughter the elephants to celebrate the New Year!"

Between the lines, there is a deep hatred for elephants, the helplessness of being oppressed by elephants, and being unable to live!
This hatred almost jumped out of the door.

Zhao Jia, who was caught off guard, felt like a thunderbolt in the clear sky, or someone knocked him down with a sap.

(End of this chapter)