At the end of last month, rangers in the Kruger National Park found the remains of a shot elephant. This, according to SANParks spokesman William Mabasa, was the second elephant poached in the park this year.
An aerial survey of the Quirimbas National Park in Mozambique soon became a count of corpses.
Half of the elephants sighted from the air, late last year, were dead.
Today is World Elephant Day, which aims to highlight the plight of the animals in both Africa and Asia. Since the day’s launch in 2012, the world’s elephant populations have come under ever more pressure from ivory poaching, especially in Africa.
Quirimbas National Park is not alone. The Selous National Park, which holds 40% of Tanzania’s elephant population, has lost 67% of its elephants in the last four years. Central and East Africa have been the worst hit, but now the poachers are moving south.
At the end of last month, rangers in the Kruger National Park found the remains of a shot elephant. This, according to SANParks spokesman William Mabasa, was the second elephant poached in the park this year.
This is not the first time poachers have targeted Kruger. In the 1980s, elephants were killed by poachers from war-torn Mozambique. The attacks dropped off once peace returned to Mozambique.
What worries Richard Thomas, the spokesman for Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network, is that rhino and elephant poachers are already using the same transport networks.
“We are finding both ivory and rhino horn in cases we are investigating. This strongly suggests that these poachers are using the same networks,” said Thomas.
What is driving demand, said Thomas, is growing middle classes in China and Thailand who have disposable income and are buying ivory as a prestige item.
“We need to change people’s behaviour and persuade them it is no longer a cool thing. But this is a very long-term goal,” he said. Better law enforcement is needed, where the kingpins are targeted and long prison sentences given.
Mabasa said if poachers are now focusing on Kruger SANParks is prepared: “We are already patrolling for rhino poachers.
“It is not like there are different techniques for hunting rhino and elephant poachers.”