Big Life Foundation

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Awhile ago I found a wildlife photographer whose work moved me. I can't afford to purchase any of his artwork but I did write to him expressing my appreciation for his work. He wrote back thanking me for the letter. I've been on his mailing list ever since.

He's involved in an anti-poaching program called Big Life Foundation and I get email updates on this effort to stop killing elephants. Donations are desperately needed.

www.biglifeafrica.org

Here is a link to the book: http://www.biglifeeditions.com/

This is the letter I got today:

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December 2, 2010 LATEST DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS IN AMBOSELI From Nick Brandt Above is a photo of an elephant named Magna. He was born in 1965. As you can see, his tusks are barely more than broken stumps. So you would think that he would be safe from poachers. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. Two weeks ago just outside Amboseli National Park in Kenya, he was killed by poachers. His meagre tusks hacked out of his skull as bounty. If Magna was killed for tusks this size, then really, no elephant is safe any more. When ivory is selling for as much as $5000 a kilo in the Far East, even tusks such as Magna's made him a target for the poachers. This is the battle that we face. I was recently in Amboseli for three weeks, and in just that short space of time, eight elephants were found in the area, killed for their ivory. As usual, these are just the elephants we know about. In such a vast area, we don't know how many more may remain undiscovered. But if this rate of killing were to continue, there won't be many left within just a couple of years.  Four of the eight elephants have been killed in an area east of Amboseli where the scouts and rangers protecting that area have been temporarily shut down. This seems to prove that poachers will always quickly find the weakest link, and that without some kind of infrastructure like we are putting in, the poaching will escalate still faster and further.   Meanwhile, a two year old elephant calf was found wandering in from Tanzania without his mother. Sadly, a few days later, two more elephant carcasses were found on the Tanzanian side close to the Kenyan border, one of those carcasses presumably the calf's mother. So, with the poaching escalating, we are urgently trying to get more in place as fast as we can. As of this moment in time, running for two months, Big Life Foundation now has, on both the Kenyan and Tanzanian sides : - Seven anti-poaching camps built or modified and expanded, each manned by eight scouts/rangers.   - Two more camps that will be built and running by the end of January, bringing the total to nine.   -  Seven anti-poaching patrol vehicles for all the camps.   -  A team of new rangers and scouts, platoon commanders and training instructor hired. Over the next month or two, the Tanzanian rangers will be armed and trained up to full efficiency.    - Prosecution officers  employed for both sides of the border to follow through on all arrests, making sure that the criminals receive necessary justice. - The Kenya Wildlife Service will also shortly receive another LandCruiser and full supply of equipment for a patrolling Wildlife Protection Unit of eight armed rangers. We will be providing them constantly with all the information our men glean, to further enable them to maximize the efficiency of their anti-poaching operations.   - We are now urgently putting into effect a far larger network of informants than currently exists on both sides of the border. A comprehensive network of informants is critical to our success, and to preventing the killing of all species. The rewards for information leading to the arrest of poachers with ivory or bushmeat will far exceed as incentive what has been offered in the past, with rewards of up to $1500.   - The co-purchase of a Microlight plane for monitoring and surveillance on the Tanzanian side, while Richard Bonham, Big Life's Director of Operations, will now be flying in his plane over the area on the Kenyan side for 300+ hours a year.   - We will also be acquiring two sets of tracker dogs with full-time handlers, an essential and incredibly effective component of anti-poaching efforts, for both sides of the border.  But given the level of poaching we are coming in to overcome, we now realize that we need to double the anti-poaching camps to a total of eighteen camps on both sides of the border, with accompanying patrol vehicles and equipment. This may be Africa, where wages for the men on the ground is not expensive compared to the West, but vehicles, equipment, fuel and upkeep of this small army of people, protecting such a large area, requires a significant amount of money.    But once this level of infrastructure is in place - 160 rangers and scouts in eighteen camps, with aerial support above, canine(!) and informer network support on the ground - we feel that we will then radically reduce the poaching of ALL animals in this extraordinary ecosystem.  LATEST NEWS : POACHERS APPREHENDED BY BIG LIFE LAST WEEK:  Information came from one of our informers that two men had killed two giraffes at night in the hills north of Amboseli National Park. (This is frighteningly easy at night : the poachers shine bright lights into their eyes, blinding them, and use that opportunity to go right up to them and kill them). The scouts were able to set up an ambush, and successfully arrest the poachers with the giraffe meat. LATEST NEWS : POACHERS WHO KILLED MAGNA AND OTHERS CAUGHT: Last week, the Kenya Wildlife Service intercepted a gang of poachers shooting at an elephant herd near the Kenya/Tanzania border. The poachers had come over from Tanzania, and were behind some of the recent elephant killings, including it seems, Magna. A firefight ensued and the two of the poachers were killed, while two others got away and are now being pursued in Tanzania. The KWS rangers were part of the only Wildlife Protection Unit in Amboseli. Big Life is financing a much-needed second mobile eight-man unit shortly, as well as the necessary infrastructure on the Tanzanian side that will enable our rangers to help pursue fugitive poachers like the ones who just escaped into Tanzania.   It is important emphasize that Big Life is trying to protect a massive wilderness area over two million acres in size. And while we are making fast progress, elephants are still being poached at an alarming rate in other areas of the region.    As the illegal demand for wildlife parts continues to grow - from ivory to lion parts to giraffe meat and zebra skin - so the pressure will remain, and so Big Life must do everything we can to protect and preserve.   It's an obvious statement, but we urgently need more donations as soon as possible. Please go to: www.biglifeafrica.org Thanks, Nick Brandt

I have no idea what you're talking about so here's a bunny with a pancake on it's head

[Twilla]

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I'm happy to send a donation. It won't be much though, that fed pay freeze has me nervous.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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I want the book. His work is gorgeous, isn't it?

[Twilla]

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And here's the loving Christian message I left with my donation:

I hope my small donation goes toward the bullets to shoot the poachers. Thanks for setting this up.

[Twilla]

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I want the book. His work is gorgeous, isn't it?

Yeah, he does some amazing things with light.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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And here's the loving Christian message I left with my donation:

I hope my small donation goes toward the bullets to shoot the poachers. Thanks for setting this up.

I replied to the email saying I'd put this on my site hoping my members would open their wallets. Every little bit helps.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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I just found his page on Facebook. It seems every one of the elephants in his book have been killed by poachers.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nick-Brand...086?v=wall

and here's the foundation page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Life-F...751?v=wall

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Big news!

BIG LIFE BRINGS DOWN LEADER OF AMBOSELI'S WORST POACHING GANG, ELEPHANT KILLER FOR TWO DECADES <-- clicky for the news story!

[Jamminitin]

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Couldn't open it.

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Oh wow.... it's messed up for me too. Lemme see if I can fix it.