Poachers target hippos for giant teeth in place of ivory

Image source, Getty Images

Increased restrictions on ivory trade have led to an increase of the trade in the teeth of the Hippopotamus.

An animal welfare charity studied three popular online marketplaces after the UK banned the trade in elephant ivory.

After the near total-ban of elephant ivory was introduced, there was an increase in the trade in Hippo ivory in the UK.

The report said that it was "deeply concerning" that there was increased demand for ivory from hippos.

As far back as 1989 when a worldwide ban on trade in ivory was first agreed, researchers say this pattern was obvious.

Hippo teeth and tusks are cheaper and easier to get than ivory.

All international sales of Hippo body parts need an export permit.

Between 1975, when CITES records began, and last year, 770,000 kilogram of Hippo teeth were legally traded. There is a trade that is not legal.

Hippo teeth were seized the most in the EU in 2020.

According to Philip Muruthy, vice-president of the Africa Wildlife Foundation, there are increasing cases of dogs detecting Hippo teeth at different airports in Africa.

The global population of the common Hippo has dropped by 30% since 1994, according to a study by the International Union for the Preservation of Nature.

There has been a decline in the number of people in West and Central Africa.

They proposed a complete ban on trade in the run-up to a CITES meeting in Panama last month, but this would only have been possible under CITES rules if there had been more than 50% drop in the population in the last decade.

A move called "annotation" was proposed by the 10 West and Central African countries. The EU and East and South African countries did not support this proposal.

Some of the East and South African countries are the source of three-quarters of the estimated 13,912 hippos whose parts and products were traded over the course of nine years.

Image source, Getty Images

The senior director of public affairs with Humane Society International points out that little work has been done to establish the number of Hippos.

She says there has been very little research on the population of Hippos. Range countries know what's going on with their Hippos so they should not be ignored.

Reducing population size can have a long-term impact because Hippos have a low birth rate.

• All hippos live in Africa - there are two types, the common hippo (population estimated at 115,000 to 130,000 in 2016) and the pygmy hippo (2,000-3,000)
• The common hippo was classified as "vulnerable to extinction" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list in 2016
• The parts and products of an estimated 13,909 hippos were legally traded between 2009 and 2018 - three-quarters of them originated in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
• 770,000kg of hippo teeth were legally traded between 1975 and 2017 - the size of the illegal trade is unknown

The legal and illegal trade in Hippo teeth needs to be closely monitored.

Unless trade is closely controlled, the common Hippo could be threatened with extinction.

There is strong evidence of the co-mingling of legal and illegal ivory, which suggests that ivory is laundered into the legal market.

In the case of the African forest elephant, many were killed for their tusks, and without stronger controls, Hippos may share the fate of elephants.