Elephants Are Being Slaughtered for Their Skin to Make Jewelry — Tell the UN to Step in Now!

The world’s elephants face many threats to their survival, including habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, being captured by the tourism and entertainment industries, and of course, poaching for their tusks. However, there is now yet another disturbing threat to elephants — poaching for their skin to make jewelry and bogus “medicine.”

You can view images of this heinous slaughter and jewelry here, but we warn you, it may be too graphic for some people.

A petition on Care2 explains one incident in particular in a riverbed in southwestern Myanmar, where more than two dozen rotting skinned elephant corpses were found; their skins cut and peeled off to be rolled into beaded jewelry and mixed into tonics to be sold to ignorant individuals. To combat these threats to elephants, the World Wildlife Fund has set up poaching patrol units in Myanmar which have already led to the arrest of thirteen poachers.

More poaching patrol units would mean more poachers caught and fewer elephants slaughtered, and the petition’s author is calling on the United Nations to fund poaching patrol units to save our world’s Asian elephants.

If you agree that the United Nations is obligated to step in and stop these global crimes by funding anti-poaching units, please take a moment to sign the petition.

Few people are aware that elephants are poached for their skins, so please make sure to share this with your network!

Image Source: Pixabay