Extinction Looms for Forest Elephants: 60 Percent of Africa's Fores...

African forest elephants are being poached out of existence. A study just published in the online journal PLOS ONE shows that across their range in central Africa, a staggering 62 percent of all forest elephants have been killed for their ivory over the past decade.

"The analysis confirms what conservationists have feared: the rapid trend towards extinction -- potentially within the next decade -- of the forest elephant,"...

They play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of one of Earth's critical carbon sequestering tropical forests.

Prof. Lee White CBE, head of Gabon's National Parks Service says: "A rain forest without elephants is a barren place. They bring it to life, they create the trails and keep open the forest clearings other animals use; they disperse the seeds of many of the rainforest trees -- elephants are forest gardeners at a vast scale. [emphasis mine]

Elephants and bees rapid slide toward extinction are screaming an alert, we're killing off  species which are critical to our own survival. This should be front page news, not buried in a science or nature section.