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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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101689
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10168900.066
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1990-09-19
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FROM THE PUBLISHER, Page 21
Since ancient times, human beings have been fascinated by
elephants. From the powerful woolly mammoths that dominate
prehistoric cave paintings to the soulful Babar of children's
stories, these partisans of the order Proboscidea have captivated
us with their gentleness and awed us with their strength.
Unfortunately for the elephant, however, the world's affection for
ivory is almost as ancient and as great. Today the voracious
appetite for the tusks of African elephants -- particularly in the
Far East -- threatens to eradicate this noble species. TIME
correspondent Ted Gup chronicles the danger in this week's cover
story on the ivory trail.
An investigative reporter who covered the Iran-contra and
Pentagon procurement scandals, Gup logged 35,000 miles in ten weeks
traveling around the globe. He began toward the end of the ivory
trail, in Tokyo and Hong Kong, where more than 400 tons of ivory
were imported last year. Visiting warehouses where tusks were
stacked to the ceiling, "I got to see the ivory the way the Far
East sees ivory -- divorced from the animal and remote from the
killing," Gup says. "Most of the consumers are so far from the
source that they cannot imagine its origin in axes and blood. As
I went back toward Africa, the horror hit me."
Accompanied by photographer William Campbell, Gup saw his first
elephant in the wild in Kenya's Tsavo National Park. "We were lying
on our bellies near a water hole, waiting, when suddenly there they
were -- a herd of seven elephants approaching the water hole. The
little ones were frolicking and gamboling about, some of them
locking their tusks and pressing their heads against each other in
a kind of reverse tug-of-war. A pretty good-size bull noticed us.
His ears flared in alarm, and he looked very menacing." Gup and
Campbell tensed, but the bull did not charge them.
Gup says he was won over by the animals. "I wish the whole
world could see the elephants the way I saw them," Gup says. "Then
they would understand that ivory is not jade; it's not a mineral.
It's the product of a magnificent animal that has suffered
tremendously so that people can wear something gleaming around
their necks."