NewsTracker Answers for week of May 02, 2016

Q: Kenya's president set fire to thousands of elephant tusks and rhino horns, destroying a stockpile that would have been worth a fortune to smugglers and sending a message that trade in the animal parts must be stopped. Where is Kenya?

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Q: President Uhuru Kenyatta said poachers could wipe out Africa's elephants by 2025. The majority of the poached ivory is being shipped to which country where it is carved into products for a growing market?

A. China

B. India

C. Russia

D. United States


A.  Wildlife conservation groups say that Asia, and China in particular, are the key consumers in an industry that encourages the slaughter of some 30,000 African elephants a year. In the 1970s, Africa had about 1.2 million elephants, but now has 400,000 to 450,000.


Q: Kenyatta's call for an ivory trade ban was backed at the burning ceremony by Ali Bongo, president of Gabon, home to the forest elephant. Gabon is on the western coast of Central Africa on which body of water?

A. Atlantic Ocean

B. Indian Ocean

C. Pacific Ocean

D. Mediterranean Sea 


A. The African continent is bounded by the Atlantic on the west, Mediterranean on the north and the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to the east. Kenya is on the Indian Ocean and straddles the Equator as does Gabon.


Q: Kenya burned 105 tons of ivory and a ton of rhino horn. Asia also is the market for the horns from the quickly disappearing rhinos. Consumers in what southeastern Asian nation are buying much of the smuggled rhino horn?

A. Saudi Arabia

B. Turkey

C. Vietnam

D. Yemen


C. Wealthy customers in Vietnam (the only one of these nations in southeast Asia) began snapping up rhino horn in the early 2000s when a rumor started that it had cured a politician’s cancer. Rhino horn is just keratin, like your fingernails. War-torn Yemen used to buy a great deal of the smuggled horn to make handles for daggers.


Q: While China may be the major consumer of ivory today, the biggest ivory importer in the past was the former colonial ruler of Kenya . . .

A. Belgium

B. Britain

C. France

D. Germany


B. A growing middle class in 19th century England spurred demand for ivory items such as Victorian billiard balls and cutlery handles. Britain ruled Kenya from 1988 until 1962. China is trying to reduce the demand for ivory from its growing middle class by educating people about the impact on African elephants.