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Comment by majani | Hacker News Reader

Don't know why this is on HN, but as a Kenyan I'll say this: the Kenyan elephant situation is absolutely hopeless. It has been well documented since the 70s that the head honcho in poaching was the then president's wife, and the current president's mother(same woman though) [1]. For obvious reasons, this means absolutely nothing will ever be done about poaching in Kenya. If you like Kenya's elephants, best to just go see them before they become extinct, and don't waste any money on charities that claim to be solving this problem. I am not being cynical at all. 3rd world politics is just that depressing and hopeless. Feudalism disguised with democracy paint.

[1] http://mavulture.com/political-corruption/mother-of-the-nati...

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Your post made me spend the last half hour reading about this, your description of the situation as "absolutely hopeless" seems depressingly accurate :/

Maybe the most humane thing to do is to euthanize the remaining wild elephants. At least they wouldn't have to die by bleeding out after their faces are hacked off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunter_(2011_Australian_fi...

Breed tusklessness in as a dominant gene

Could you vote this president and his Mom out?

Well, he won the previous election while on trial for crimes against humanity[1](murder of 3000 Kenyans, displacement of 300,000 others), so he's gonna be pretty hard to beat next year since the International Criminal Court dropped the case after all the witnesses "disappeared."[2] Oh, and don't count on his Vice President either. They were in the crimes against humanity case together[1], and fellow politicians have openly shared stories of how the VP strangles his enemies to death(yes, this is in the literal sense)[3]. 3rd world politics man

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court...

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoce...

[3] https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/video-jirongo-narrates-how-ru...

Wow, I've heard great things about Kenya did not know the government there was in that bad of shape.

It's things like this that make me think "Yeah, things aren't that great in [insert Western democracy], but damn they could be a hell of a lot worse."

The solution strikes me as targeted killings of people like the president's mother then.

The title article says: "Although some sites have recorded declines, elephant numbers have been stable or increasing since 2006 in Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda, and range expansion has been reported in Kenya."

That's why studies that fail to mention the president's mother's involvement miss out on a lot of nuances. A deeper look: who is in charge of official animal census in Kenya? The Kenya Wildlife Service, a government agency. The potential for bias cannot be ignored. Official numbers should be weighted against independent observations from conservationists. Here's an article that took all this into account and showed how the KWS goes to lengths to cover up poaching numbers

"The KWS, charged with protecting Kenya’s game, is accused of consistently underestimating the threat, and Paul Kipkoech, its head of security in Tsavo, claimed in an interview that only 20 elephants had been killed in the park this year. But conservationists say the figure in Tsavo is much higher, perhaps as much as three or four times that. The Tsavo Trust, which runs aerial surveillance of the park, said in its November report that it had discovered six elephants shot dead by poachers that month alone."

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/elephant-appeal-...

This is why I think it is better for wealthy nations to allow free import and settlement of foreign animals in their countries. African Elephants in American Zoos would be far more safer than the free ones in Kenya.

Even feudalism can be self-disciplined- aka medieval Japan according to Jared Diamond.

did obama's visit help or hurt the feudalism problem? it seems like he was pretty friendly with the whole bunch while he was there...

Thanks for that interesting history - had no idea that corruption was that high up the chain.

But I do also second your question: Why is this on HN? It is pretty common knowledge that overhunting + poaching and poor game management are the primary reason for the loss of megafauna on the African contient.

edit: People thought my first statement was snark - it isn't. I genuinely had no idea that poaching / corruption was that high up the chain.

I think your first statement answers your question.

Really? I don't.

I don't find that something which is common knowledge - that poaching + habitat loss is the single driving force behind the loss of African (and other) megafauna - to be news.

We (zoologists) have known this for a long, long time.

Hacker News is not centered on zoologists. A lot of the comments that I really hope to provoke informed responses with just go unresponded to, because (I assume) they are in the area of linguistics and the HN population doesn't have a lot to say about that. Similarly, the bar for "interesting material from zoology" is lower here than it might be in a zoological journal.

I can appreciate all of that. Thank you for the civil reply - I will keep this in mind going forward before I comment next time.

I don't believe anyone is requiring you to find it interesting.

However, enough readers of HN did find it interesting for it to make it to the front page. Maybe widespread understanding of the issues amongst non-experts isn't considered important for zoologists. I have no idea. But it's clearly interesting to some people.

You're referring to the article. the parent poster is (i think) referring to your comment "had no idea that ..."

In any case, you never know what discussion sparks insight. Poaching is driven by demand. Perhaps a campaign like the superman vs KKK could be employed.

God forbid a collection of talented people devote their creativity to becoming aware of and solving a real pressing problem and not finding new ways to apply moustaches to live images.

You know - you are absolutely right. I am ashamed to admit that I let my expertise get in the way of my common sense here.

I will keep that in mind on all my comments going forward.

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