Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE)

Conference of the Parties

Every two to three years, the Conference of the Parties meets to review the implementation of the Convention. The MIKE Programme reports to each Conference of the Parties. Links to these reports are provided below.

Standing Commitee

The Standing Committee provides policy guidance to the Secretariat on the implementation of the Convention and carries out tasks given to it by the Conference of the Parties. Usually the Standing Committee meets once a year. The MIKE Programme reports to each Standing Committee in a document jointly prepared with ETIS, UNEP-WCMC, AfESG, AsESG. Links to these reports are below:

MIKE Report

Institutional Arrangements

The implementation of MIKE is the responsibility of the Standing Committee, who has in turn set up a sub-committee, known as the MIKE-ETIS Subgroup, to carry out that responsibility. The CITES Secretariat is charged with hiring appropriate experts to provide technical support. It has done this by establishing a MIKE Central Coordinating Unit (MIKE CCU) which is currently located at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

For the purposes of MIKE implementation, Africa is divided into four subregions and Asia are is divided two sub-regions. In each of these sub-regions implementation is supervised by a Sub-regional Steering Committee, comprised of the national wildlife directors from participating elephant range States. Each range State also has a National focal point and each site has a locally based Site focal point.

MIKE’s technical outputs are overseen and endorsed by an independent Technical Advisory Group (TAG). Established by the Standing Committee, the TAG is a group of volunteer experts drawn from across the globe. The TAG guides the technical quality of the MIKE processes and methods, and reviews the programme’s analytical outputs. The TAG is comprised of one expert from each sub-region and six global specialists.

MIKE and ETIS Subgroup of the Standing Committee

The MIKE-ETIS Subgroup was established by the CITES Standing Committee at its 41st meeting (Geneva, February 1999). At its 49th meeting (Geneva, April 2003) the mandate of the Subgroup was expanded to include ETIS.

The role of the MIKE and ETIS Subgroup is laid out in the group’s Terms of Reference.

The membership of the MIKE and ETIS Subgroup is usually re-established at the meeting of the Standing Committee that immediately follows each meeting of the Conference of the Parties. The current membership is as follows:

• Four African elephant range States (2 anglophone and 2 francophone): Chad, Kenya, Senegal and Zambia;

• Two Asian elephant range States: China and Indonesia; and

• Two representatives from Europe and North America: Belgium and United States of America.

Meeting documents for the MIKE ETIS Subgroup meeting: 6 – 10 November 2023

• Draft agenda - SC77 Information document 13
• Presentation of aggregated summaries of validated ETIS data on ETIS online

Meeting documents for the MIKE ETIS Subgroup meeting: 7 – 11 March 2022

• Draft agenda - SC74 Inf. 5
• MESG19 Doc. 1 - Membership of the MIKE AND ETIS Technical Advisory Group
  • Annex 2
  • Annex 3
  • Annex 4
• MESG19 Doc. 2 - Non reporting for data aggregates

The records of meetings of the Subgroup are provided below for general information.

MIKE and ETIS Technical Advisory Group

The Standing Committee is charged with establishing a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to provide technical oversight to both MIKE and ETIS.Broadly, the TAG was established:

• To ensure the technical and practical soundness of MIKE and ETIS;
• To help ensure the consistency and appropriateness of the design, development and implementation of MIKE across the six sub-regions in Africa and Asia and of ETIS worldwide; and
• To advise on appropriate analytical procedures and time-frames for outputs or products from MIKE and ETIS to the Parties or relevant bodies established by the Parties.

The TAG Terms of Reference were reviewed and approved by the MIKE and ETIS Subgroup of the Standing Committee in 2014.

The TAG consists of up to 12 members, plus additional co-opted members. Six members are nominated by range State governments of the six subregions where elephants occur. The MIKE and ETIS Subgroup reviews and confirms nominations made by the range States. The rest of the members are appointed by the MIKE and ETIS Subgroup on the basis of their expertise on relevant subjects. The chairs of the IUCN/SSC African Elephant and Asian Elephant Specialist Groups (AfESG and AsESG respectively) are co-opted members of the TAG.

As described in Notification to the Parties 2022/025, the current members of the TAG are the following:

Minutes of the TAG meetings are available below:

• 16th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Online, 1-2 July 2020)
• 15th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 16-19 September 2019)
• 14th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 7-8 November 2018)
• 13th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 21-22 March 2016)
• 12th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 7-8 April 2014)
• 11th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 6-10 December 2012)
• 10th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Naivasha, Kenya, 30-31 May 2011)
• 9th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 6-10 December 2010)
• 8th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 14-15 December 2009)
• 7th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 12-13 January 2009)
• 6th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Entebbe, Uganda, 3-4 March 2008)
• 5th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, Kenya, 4-5 July 2006)
• 4th Technical Advisory Group meeting (Windhoek, Namibia, 9-10 December 2003)
• 3rd Technical Advisory Group meeting (Accra, Ghana, 28-29 April 2003)
• 2nd Technical Advisory Group meeting (Farnham, United Kingdom, 27-28 May 2002)
• 1st Technical Advisory Group meeting (Nairobi, 28-29 November 2001)

MIKE Data Analysis

MIKE evaluates relative poaching levels based on the Proportion of Illegally Killed Elephants (PIKE), which is calculated as the number of illegally killed elephants found divided by the total number of el ephant carcasses encountered by patrols or other means, aggregated by year for each site. PIKE can be scaled up to the subregional and continental levels. 

While PIKE provides a sensitive measure of poaching trends, it may be affected by a number of potential biases related to data quality, carcass detection probabilities, variation in natural mortality rates and other factors, and hence results need to be interpreted with caution.

Elephant Mortality Data

Access to MIKE data is governed by the provisions of CITES Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev. CoP18), which states:

g) summaries and aggregates of data provided to MIKE and ETIS, and the analyses of such data, constitute information that will be considered to be in the public domain once they are published on the CITES website, or otherwise publicly distributed; the detailed data on individual seizure cases, elephant mortalities and law enforcement submitted to MIKE or ETIS are owned by the respective data providers, which in most case are the CITES Parties; any such data relating to a CITES Party will be accessible to that Party for information and review purposes, but will not be released to any third party without the consent of the Party concerned; data may also be released to contractors (e.g. statisticians) or other researchers (e.g. MIKE and ETIS Subgroup - approved research collaborations) under appropriate non-disclosure agreements; and

As stipulated by Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev. CoP18) summaries and aggregates of data provided to MIKE are provided in the links below. (Updated 06.10.2023)

• Numbers of carcasses found for each site and year
• Continental and Sub-regional PIKE trend for Africa
• Continental PIKE trend for Asia

Any third parties wishing to obtain more detailed elephant carcass data should get in touch with the CITES management authority of the elephant range State(s) concerned.

MIKE Analytical Code

The MIKE analytical method, and more specifically the programming code and description of its use for the PIKE trend analysis reported in the following reports, can be accessed through the GitHub repository:

• Document CoP18 Doc. 68.2 and its Addendum (MIKE_LSMEANS_Code)
• MIKE Report: PIKE trend analysis – Methodology and Results: November 2020 (MIKE 2020 GLMM)
• Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE): PIKE trend analysis 2003 – 2020 (MIKE 2021 GLMM-unweighted)
• Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE): PIKE trend analysis 2003-2021 (MIKE 2022 GLMM-unweighted)
• Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE): PIKE trend analysis 2023
  (MIKE 2023 GLMM-unweighted)