Wayne Pacelle, a vice-president of the Humane Society of the United States, argued that CITES had opened the door to a disastrous black market. "The Parties to CITES are engaging in a dangerous gamble by renewing the ivory trade and sending a signal to poachers throughout Africa that elephants may once again bring them enormous profits."

Although the reaction was more positive in the three African countries that had sought permission, The Muckraker columnist at the Zimbabwe Independent Online worried that bloodthirsty celebratations would not play well in the United States and Europe:

"Pictures carried around the world last week of our politicians and National Parks staff celebrating the proposed slaughter of elephants will have gone down like a lead balloon in the countries where the majority of our tourists originate. Those celebrating are the same people entrusted with the management of ivory stocks. Perhaps they know something we don't? ... Some people are obviously about to make a lot of money from ivory which perhaps explains the singing and dancing at the conference centre."

One big beast
One thing all sides can agree on is that African elephants are today's largest land animals. African elephants are larger than the only other elephant species, the Asian elephant. African elephants are divided into two sub-species -- the larger, more familiar savanna elephant and the smaller, more mysterious forest elephant.

Male savanna elephants are up to 4 meters tall at the shoulder, and weigh roughly 5,500 kilograms. To fuel that mass, they eat an average of 150 kilograms of food per day, and drink 100 to 220 liters of water. (Forest elephants males average 2.3 meters tall at the shoulder, and weigh up to 3,200 kilograms. These statistics are from the excellent "Africa's Vanishing Wildlife" (see bibliography.)

With such a voracious appetite, it's not surprising that as Africa's exploding human population seeks more farm and rangeland, people are having ever-greater conflict with elephants.