Orphaned baby elephant mourns death of mother after she was killed by poacher's poisoned spear

[Theowl32]

Just 24 hours earlier, the endangered animals had been photographed playing happily together

In heart-wrenching scenes, the baby elephant looks lost as she waits to be rescued from the national park

In the footage, the traumatised animal, named Roi, is seen standing over her mother's dead body in Kenya's Masai Mara National Park

Read more: Heartbreaking moment orphaned baby elephant mourns the death of her mother after she was killed by a poacher s poisoned spear Daily Mail Online
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Check out the poacher types.

You all thinking what I am thinking? Yeah, you are all thinking what I am thinking.

 

[waltky]

Why illegal elephant poaching matters...

Study: Elephants May Unlock Cancer Prevention Secret
October 09, 2015 - Despite their huge size and having many more cells than humans, cancer among elephants is quite rare, and new research may explain why.

It turns out that elephant cells “have 38 additional modified copies (alleles) of a gene that encodes p53, a well-defined tumor suppressor, as compared to humans, who have only two,” researchers at the University of Utah said in a study appearing in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The report also says elephants also have a “more robust mechanism for killing damaged cells” that could become cancerous. According to the researchers, among isolated elephant cells, damaged and possibly precancerous cells are destroyed at twice the rate of healthy human cells and five times the rate of people who have Li-Fraumeni Syndrome, with only one working copy of p53. People with this syndrome have “more than a 90 percent lifetime cancer risk in children and adults.” Because elephants have more than 100 times the number of cells as people, they would seem to have 100 times more chance of a damaged cell becoming cancerous.
But that is not the case.
“By all logical reasoning, elephants should be developing a tremendous amount of cancer, and in fact, should be extinct by now due to such a high risk for cancer,” said Joshua Schiffman, pediatric oncologist at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah School of Medicine, and Primary Children’s Hospital, in a statement. “We think that making more p53 is nature’s way of keeping this species alive.” In fact, his researchers indicates that elephants, who live between 50 and 70 years, have a cancer mortality rate of just under five percent, compared to 11 to 25 percent among humans. To try to figure out p53’s role, Schiffman’s team collaborated with Utah’s Hogle Zoo and the Ringling Brothers Center for Elephant Conservation. They took blood from circus elephants that had been retired to the Center and purposely damaged the cell DNA, a step that can lead to cancer.

Some of the first 40 elephant wander round in the bush after being released into newly-named Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park in Gaza Mozambique​

The cells “committed suicide,” researchers said. “It’s as if the elephants said, ‘It’s so important that we don’t get cancer, we’re going to kill this cell and start over fresh,’” says Schiffman. “If you kill the damaged cell, it’s gone, and it can’t turn into cancer. This may be more effective of an approach to cancer prevention than trying to stop a mutated cell from dividing and not being able to completely repair itself.” Additional studies will be needed to determine whether p53 directly protects elephants from cancer. While the research may, one day, yield new drugs to fight cancer in humans, researchers say it would not come immediately.

Study: Elephants May Unlock Cancer Prevention Secret

 

[Stephanie]

Dang, I've watched where elephants mourn their dead. it is so sad.

 

[TheOldSchool]

Dang, I've watched where elephants mourn their dead. it is so sad.

WOW a compassionate post from you! Good for you Steph!

 

[waltky]

Cyanide used to kill elephants...

Zimbabwe official: 5 arrested for poisoning 11 elephants
Oct 7, `15 -- A Zimbabwean wildlife official says five people are in police custody and being questioned over the killing of 11 elephants poisoned by cyanide at Hwange National Park in the west of the country.

In addition to the elephants killed at Hwange park, three others were poisoned by cyanide near Kariba in northern Zimbabwe in the past two weeks.

National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority spokeswoman Caroline Washaya Moyo on Wednesday said in a statement all five suspects in the Hwange killings were resident in the national park's main camp. Moyo told The Associated Press by telephone that the suspects are not park employees but were staying with relatives.

She said no-one had been arrested for the poisoning of the three elephants near Kariba.

News from The Associated Press