Photo courtesy of Emirates
When Cecil the Lion was killed this past summer, numerous airlines including Emirates took a stand and banned big-game trophies from flights. The Dubai-based airline now has taken that one step further, showing its support for United for Wildlife, a coalition of conservation organizations, by painting decals of endangered animals on two of its jumbo jets.
The liveries of two A380s feature animals threatened by poaching, such as African elephants and rhinos, and the airline is using the planes to raise awareness about the illegal wildlife trade and promote protection efforts. As Emirates president Sir Tim Clark said in a press release:
“The world is in a global poaching crisis, and everyone has to do their part to stop this, before it is too late. Emirates believes that the global transport industry, including airlines, can play a significant role to break the supply chain of illegal wildlife trade. And at Emirates, we are committing the resources to do our part.”
To further spread the message against the illegal wildlife trade, Emirates will publish regular feature stories on the subject in its inflight magazine, as well as add related podcasts and films to its inflight entertainment system. The airline says it is also working to train its staff about how to identify illegal animal goods and what to do when they encounter such products.
You can see the decals being added to Emirates A380 planes in the timelapse video below. It took 28 people two-and-a-half days to do the job on just one A380. That’s about 900 hours of work per plane.
In its press release Emirates also included these facts about the illegal wildlife trade:
- There are as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild. Illegal trade in their parts and products is one of the biggest threats to wild tigers. Between 2000 and 2014, the parts of at least 1,590 tigers were seized in Asia.
- Rhino poaching in South Africa increased from 13 rhinos in 2007 to 1,215 rhinos in 2014. That now equates to more than three rhinos a day. Africa-wide, 1,293 rhinos are reported to have been poached in 2014.
- Around 30,000 African elephants are killed by poachers each year. Central Africa is worst hit with a poaching rate twice the continental average. Left unaddressed, poaching could cause the extinction of elephants in Central Africa.
- The pangolin is the world’s most-trafficked mammal. Over a million pangolins are estimated to have been poached in the last 10 years.
- Park rangers are often ill equipped and inexperienced to tackle armed and ruthless poachers. Poaching syndicates have changed the way they operate and are now using sophisticated weaponry and equipment to increase their activities and avoid detection (helicopters, veterinary drugs, night vision equipment). About 1,000 rangers are estimated to have been killed in ten years while protecting wildlife.