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We lose 96 elephants every day in Africa due to the ivory market. WCS is leading the charge, but to scale up and expand our efforts, we need your help. Say you're in with a gift and help us reach our $96,000 goal by next Tuesday. Dear Friend of Wildlife, Last year, an average of 96 elephants disappeared every single day in Africa. It's almost unimaginable. We're in a poaching crisis. Inadequate protection for elephants and insufficient efforts to halt ivory trafficking means that every African elephant is a potential payday for poachers. But you and I know that the value of a wild elephant, healthy and alive, is priceless. WCS has an ambitious plan to work with our partners to stop the killing, stop the trafficking, and stop the demand for ivory – all to protect existing elephant herds, and allow African elephant populations to recover. It starts with you. Help us raise $96,000 by October 8th >> We know what works. In protected areas where trained ecoguards are on the ground, forest elephant densities are seven times higher than where no guards are present. But with poaching rates accelerating, we need to scale up – immediately. Our ambitious plan includes three components: Stop the killing by recruiting, equipping, training, and deploying ecoguards as well as launching protection programs in new sites. We're also expanding aerial surveillance – the best way to rapidly detect and respond to poaching activity. Right now we have 5 planes in sites across Africa and are planning to introduce planes into Congo and Tanzania and to use a helicopter for anti-poaching in Mozambique. Stop the trafficking by launching new anti-trafficking operations in Pointe Noire (Congo's largest port), Pemba (northern Mozambique's largest port), the Uganda-Kenya border, and Nigeria. But we don't just want to get better at catching traffickers – we want to close the loopholes they exploit by pressuring our own country to enact an ivory trade moratorium and supporting other countries to do likewise. We commend the 6 African countries who recently pledged to do just that. Stop the demand by educating the public about ivory's deadly toll. The true cost of ivory is dead elephants – a fact that many people simply don't know. We've launched our 96 Elephants campaign to raise this awareness and are working with our many partners to spread the message far and wide. Together, we plan to reduce consumer demand for ivory by 25% by 2016. Sound like a tall order? You're right. It's a lot to take on, but we know these strategies work. We've been successfully protecting the elephants of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the heart of the Congo rainforest for over 20 years – and there are as many elephants there as when we arrived, while elephants have been decimated in surrounding parks. We're going to replicate our successes in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park across Africa to save elephant populations, wherever they roam – but we're going to need help. We need to raise $96,000 by October 8th to roll out our elephant-saving strategies. Can you help? With so much at stake, we've got a lot of work ahead of us – thank you for rolling up your sleeves and helping us save elephants from the brink. Sincerely, Liz Bennett Vice President, Species Conservation Wildlife Conservation Society The Wildlife Conservation Society saves wildlife and wild places worldwide. We do so through science, global conservation, education and the management of the world's largest system of urban wildlife parks, led by the flagship Bronx Zoo. Together these activities change attitudes towards nature and help people imagine wildlife and humans living in harmony. WCS is committed to this mission because it is essential to the integrity of life on Earth.

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