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December 1997 |
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December 1997
Dear Everybody:
When we first bush-bashed our way into the wilds of North Luangwa, any elephants we saw would scream and run from us, even if they were a mile away. So tormented were the elephants by poachers, that they only ventured to the river to drink in darkness. Now, as many as nine elephants swagger through camp and feed only yards from our cottages. Gift, the orphaned elephant who is raising two offspring near our camp, often wanders by our kitchen to feed on the marula fruits. They are much safer now than when we arrived, but we will no longer be there to see them.
After 23 years of working for conservation in Africa, we have determined that we must return to the United States in order to effectively analyze and write-up our data from North Luangwa and to make it available to scientists and policy makers around the world. The CITES delegates voted in June of this year, to consider reopening the commercial trade in ivory. We believe that this would be a huge mistake. The ban on ivory trade instituted in 1989 by CITES has been the single most effective conservation initiative ever undertaken. The protection it has provided to elephant populations in countries that lacked adequate conservation resources, has meant the difference between annihilation and an opportunity to stabilize and perhaps recover from the firestorm of illegal poaching that swept through all of Africa in the 70's and 80's. We must do all that we can to ensure that this effective and all important ban on the sale of elephant ivory is continued for the foreseeable future. Elephant populations such as North Luangwa's cannot stand even a small increase in poaching. So, we are writing up our elephant data which clearly illustrates how very important the ban has been in securing this small park from commercial poachers. We hope that the world will take note when CITES votes in March 1999 on this critical issue.
There is good news for NLCP in all of this. We are gratified that The Frankfurt Zoological Society of Germany, which has generously supported our work in Africa since 1977, has agreed to continue running NLCP. So, all the good work that you have supported over the last eleven years will not be lost. NLCP is a model project, one of very few that has been successful. That success is due to the fact that NLCP has integrated wildlife conservation with the development aspirations of remote human communities in wilderness areas. Our goal has always been to make the project sustainable by Zambians, and we continue to have very high hopes that it will be successful for many years to come.
As you can well imagine, this has been a very difficult decision for us to make. Living with heat, snakes, spiders, malaria, parasites and charging buffaloes for over two decades in Africa has been a challenge, but it comes with the territory. Now, we must learn, once again, to live in the developed world while our hearts are still in the African bush. Your feelings are very important to us, and we hope that you will understand and support our decisions.
As you probably guessed, it is difficult for us to sit at a computer all day. During our annual home leave for the last three years, we have spent some of our time in the lush forests on the edge of a grizzly bear preserve in the Northwest. Tucked away in the dense, misty woods, we intended to shake off the African dust and to rest. But, Greg Johnson and Wayne Wakkinen, State Fish and Game biologists, invited us to join them on a cross-country expedition to radio-track some of the few remaining grizzly bears in the lower forty-eight states. Slogging along on snow shoes, we listened to Greg and Wayne speak of widespread habitat destruction that is pushing many flagship North American wildlife species, including grizzly bears, toward extinction. They also revealed their lack of funds to launch really effective conservation countermeasures.
Again, in Wyoming, we joined another research team, gliding on Nordic skis in search of endangered Timber Wolves. These scientists did not even have enough money to put radio transmitters on some of the re-introduced wolves in Yellowstone. We soon realized that North American wildlife problems are, in many respects, as serious as those in Africa, and that resources to quantify and address these problems are perilously scarce. We have given the last twenty three years of our lives to conservation in Africa; it is time for us to give something to our own continent.
There are only two counties in the entire United States that still contain all of the wildlife species of pre-settlement days. In the Selkirk and Purchell Mountains, small populations of grizzly bears, wolves, elk, caribou, lynx and other threatened or endangered species are struggling to hold on. It is essential to quantify the population density, reproductive biology, and causes of mortality of the grizzly bears in these mountains, yet biologists like Greg and Wayne are forced to operate on a shoe-string budget each year. With your help, we hope to beef up programs like theirs that are already in place, but strapped for lack of equipment, funding and manpower. Their project is critically short of money for such items as radio transmitters, educational literature, horses, and a horse trailer for back country monitoring of bears.
We know that many of your have supported us for years because you care about African wildlife. Part of us will always be there, and our hearts ache to wander with the elephants, sing with the children, and pat the game scouts on the back. But, it is a time for looking forward and not back, for there are many more creatures who need help, and we still have a few more years to give them. we would welcome your contributions to help your very own 'made-in-America' grizzly bears and their habitats.
In December, we stood on twelve feet of snow covering a grizzly bear den, listening to the familiar beep, beep, beep of a radio collar. It was only mildly surprising to see ice glistening on our boots instead of black African mud, and to know that the mammal wearing the collar was a bear and not a lion. As we looked out over the vast misty forests of the great Northwest, we could almost imagine a large elephant ambling silently through the trees.
But, it was only a ghost - a ghost who will follow us the rest of our lives, wherever we go, reminding us that we must always work to protect the creatures who shared their savanna with us, in another time when we all lived there together.
You were there too. We hope that you will stay with us wherever we go.
Cheers from the mountains,
Delia and Mark
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