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Iconic Tube Station Renamed ‘__________ & Castle’ To Raise Awareness Of Endangered Wildlife

Iconic Tube Station Renamed ‘__________ & Castle’ To Raise Awareness Of Endangered Wildlife

Each day there are around 100 elephants killed for their ivory

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

As the saying goes, you don't know how much you will miss something until it's gone.

Which is why LADbible gave London commuters a taster of life without elephants by temporarily renaming the iconic Elephant & Castle station to '__________ & Castle'.

As part of our Extinct campaign, we did this to reiterate the serious threat elephants are facing right now and to ensure their plight was at the forefront of the Illegal Wildlife Trade conference's agenda last week.

PA

The UK Government hosted the the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) conference - where global leaders from over 80 countries come together to discuss the solutions needed to combat this complicated and far reaching problem.

It was a crucial moment to help eradicate illegal wildlife trade for good and to protect the world's most iconic species from the threat of extinction, including the well-loved elephant.

Each day around 100 elephants are killed for their ivory and most estimates suggest that the African elephant death rate is higher than the birth rate.

In 2017, poachers in Kenya killed a 50-year-old elephant, leaving just 25 'giant tusker' elephants left in the wild.

The elephant, named Satao II after another elephant which was also shot and killed, was found dead at its home in Tsavo National Park. Two poachers were arrested before they had a chance to get away with the ivory.

Richard Moller from the Tsaco Trust said: "They are icons, they are ambassadors for elephants. This particular elephant was one that was very approachable, one of those easy old boys to find.

PA

"He has been through lots of droughts and probably other attempts at poaching.

"Luckily, through the work we do with the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS), we were able to find the carcass before the poachers could recover the ivory."

The animals are mainly killed for their ivory, and an estimated 30,000 elephants are killed each year. Satao IIs tusks collectively weighed 212 pounds and are thought to be worth over £85,000; the ivory is used in 'traditional medicine'.

Earlier this year, the UK banned the sale of ivory after an extensive public consultation.

The Government announced that they are to bring in some of the most comprehensive ivory trade regulations to be found anywhere in the world to limit the sale of the material, which is predominantly harvested from elephants.

All ivory sales will be banned, save for items produced before 1947 which contain less than 10 percent ivory and musical instruments that are less than 20 percent ivory, made prior to 1975.

Extinct: A race against time to save our endangered species. Read more from our campaign here

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Topics: government, Extinct, News, Elephant, UK, Animals, London