As the ivory poaching crisis heightens and the number of elephants in the wild declines, the problem is in need of serious attention. As a result, elephants are the subject of an Oscar-winning director’s new short film — and of “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. Kathryn Bigelow, director of “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” sat down with Stewart and former national security advisor Juan Zarate, to discuss her new short film on elephant poaching, “Last Days.”
The film comes at a time when elephant poaching is escalating at extreme rates. Over the course of just two years, 100,000 elephants were killed for their tusks — that’s one individual every 15 minutes. And much of the profits from these sales, as Bigelow notes, go directly to terrorist groups.
“There is the sort of terrorism you can do something about, by not buying these little trinkets, by not supporting this trade,” Bigelow told Stewart. “You can actually stop their revenue source.”
See the entire trailer for “Last Days” here
Exposing the Big Game 
I cannot describe the depth of my rage and sadness regarding the slaughter of precious elephants for human GREED and VANITY!!!!…the IGNORANCE is palpable!!!…all I can do is continue to spread awareness, be the animal advocate/vegan I am…and HOPE against hope that enough humans WAKE UP before ALL of these treasured creatures are GONE!!!… *tears*…
I appreciate what the film makers have done, and am glad Jon Stewart aired this piece, but why must we emphasize the links between poaching and terrorism (i.e., human deaths) in order to get people to care about this issue? Why won’t humans step up to protect elephants for the elephant’s sake? Unless we begin to value the natural world for its own sake, not for what it can give us humans, I don’t think the natural world and other species have a chance.
Studies show that humans only care about what is a benefit to them, unfortunately.
I’m glad that Jon and Kathryn Bigelow are taking on this important issue.