Dear Friend,

If only elephants could forget.

Armed with assault rifles, poachers greedy for ivory pump magazines of armor-piercing bullets into an innocent herd of elephants. To finish off the survivors, they climb over the bodies of the dying elders fallen dead in a circle trying to protect their young.

Elephants are highly intelligent social creatures that create lifelong relationships. They cry, play, have incredible memories, and even laugh!

But when an elephant walks by the ivory-stripped remains of a murdered loved one, they stop still; pausing sorrowfully to roar and mourn. Elephants can stand vigil over dead herd members for days, even covering the bones with branches and dirt.

You are their best hope

Just this month, a proposed international moratorium (suspension) of the ivory trade by Kenya was rejected, and Namibia opened its non-commercial trade in worked ivory, meaning more elephants will mourn elephants like Olly.

Adult elephants killed for their tusks leave babies behind to die. We found Olly in a dried up riverbed, abandoned and starving. Through a tremendous rescue effort by IFAW volunteers, he was airlifted to safety.

Ivory poachers illegally kill 4,000 elephants in Africa each year; an average of eleven elephants per day. Every time a new elephant is killed, the risk of extinction increases raising the market value of ivory and the likelihood of further poaching.

When I think of Olly, I get more determined to do everything I can to prevent the largest land animal from becoming wiped out forever. But I need your help.

Please open up your heart

Your donation is vital.  Wildlife rangers are losing their lives protecting elephants from ruthless gangs of heavily armed poachers that operate freely across national African borders, but the rangers are greatly under-staffed and under-equipped. Without our help, they will lose the fight.

IFAW is working with enforcement agencies like Interpol to apply crime-fighting techniques such as DNA testing to catch poachers. From Africa to China, we're working with local leaders to rebuild wildlife parks and create new sanctuaries, rescue individual elephants, and train and equip rangers to combat poaching.

But working on the ground to stop these criminals is very costly. IFAW spent 100,000 US$ to save the last 1,500 elephants in Garamba National Park after ten times that number were killed by poachers since 1995.

Certain regions of Asia and Africa may be completely emptied of their elephants if we don't act now. I simply can't stand by and do nothing while this goes on, and I know you can't either.

Elephants never forget, and neither should we. Please send your donation to help today.

Thanks for all you do,

Fred O’ Regan

President and CEO

P.S. Please help us keep elephants like Olly safe before it is too late. They cannot speak out themselves, so we must act for them. I know they will thank you from the bottom of their huge hearts.