NEW YORK – LiveAuctioneers joins many other conservation-minded businesses on August 12, World Elephant Day, to raise awareness about how thousands of Asian and African elephants are killed every year to fuel the global demand for ivory. Many may mistakenly believe that the greatest demand for ivory is in Asia, but the fact is, 80 percent of the market for illegal ivory is in the United States.

As a result of conservation efforts, poaching rates have been slowly declining over the past few years across Africa. The annual poaching mortality rate has dropped from an estimated peak of over 10 percent in 2011 to approximately 5 percent today. However, that is still at a faster rate than elephants can reproduce.

International trade in the ivory of African elephants is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); the IUCN Red List classifies African savanna elephants as “Endangered” and African forest elephants as “Critically Endangered.” The IUCN Red List classifies Asian elephants as “Endangered” and they are listed in Appendix I of CITES.

Click to learn how celebrity ambassadors like HRH Prince William, Sir Richard Branson, Yao Ming, Jackie Chan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Josh Duhamel and many others have aligned with WildAid to spread the message about wildlife crime.

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