Continued from the
previous posting.
Africa is no stranger to the sounds of automatic weapons
fire and it is also no stranger to poaching.
Elephants are high on the list of
those species slaughtered for profit and this continual massacre is prompted by
the desire of some religious adherents to possess religious icons carved from
elephant ivory.
In 2012, the
Religion and Conservation Research Collaborative of the Society for
Conservation Biology turned its attention to this issue following an article in
National Geographic by Bryan Christy titled Blood
Ivory. Christy places the responsibility
for the slaughter at the door of Catholicism and Buddhism, in some parts of the
world. It is the hope of the Advisory
Committee of the Collaborative and others that some influence can be brought to
bear on religion at the institutional stage to speak out to their
co-religionists to help stop the use of ivory for religious icons and thus
reduce the number of elephant who fall victim to the poacher AK-47. 
Thinking of the
gunshot, deflated, desiccating carcasses of these magnificent and highly intelligent
creatures while religious adherents moan
and chant over their extracted molars makes for dark meditation and yet another
sobering indictment of religion.
For additional information on the use of poached ivory as
religious icons and the subsequent impacts on elephants go to http://www.conbio.org/policy/scb-statement-on-the-use-of-ivory-for-religious-objects
(Unless otherwise noted images courtesy of Google Images)
