A pair of tusks can be worth as much as 16,000 dollars. And that is why poachers do what they do. Remember those elephants that were killed because of cyanide poisoning a little while ago in Zimbabwe? Well, it turns out that more elephants were killed than was originally reported. The most recent slaughter wiped out more than 300 elephants at once- by poisoning their salt licks and water. But that's not all- lions, hyenas, buffalo, vultures and kudu have also died from consuming the poisoned carcasses.
Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph reports.
The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country’s largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years.
Pictures taken by the hunters, which have been obtained exclusively by The Telegraph, reveal horrific scenes. Parts of the national park, whose more accessible areas are visited by thousands of tourists each year, can be seen from the air to be littered with the deflated corpses of elephants, often with their young calves dead beside them, as well as those of other animals.
There is now deep concern that the use of cyanide – first revealed in July, but on a scale that has only now emerged – represents a new and particularly damaging technique in the already soaring poaching trade.
Zimbabwean authorities said that 90 animals were killed this way. But the hunters who captured these photographs say they have conducted a wider aerial survey and counted the corpses of more than 300.
Poachers killed the elephants over the past three months by lacing waterholes and salt licks with cyanide. Animals are drawn to them during the dry season in the already arid and remote south-eastern section of the 5,660-square mile park.
After the elephants died, often collapsing just a few yards from the source, lions, hyenas and vultures which fed on their carcasses were also struck down, as were other animals such as kudu and buffalo that shared the same waterholes.
Zimbabwe’s authorities say the cyanide has been planted by villagers who sell the elephants’ tusks for around £300 each to cross-border traders. They can be resold in South Africa for up to £10,000 a pair, according to court papers relating one recent incident, sometimes re-emerging as carved artefacts such as bangles in Cape Town’s craft markets.
Zimbabwe has one of Africa’s biggest surviving elephant populations, since herds in neighbouring regions of Eastern and Central Africa have been severely damaged by poaching, and half of the country’s estimated 80,000 elephants are thought to live in Hwange.
Conservationists say the African elephant is so much under threat from habitat loss, conflict with humans and illegal poaching and hunting that on present trends it could die out within 50 years.
In 2011, at least 17,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks according to Cites, the international body that focuses on endangered species. Ivory is highly prized as a “white gold” in Asian countries where a growing middle class is seeking safe investments, and United Nations wildlife experts say the trade in illegal ivory has more than doubled since 2007.
The poisoning was first uncovered by a European hunter and his Zimbabwean guides who spotted a dead cow and her calf as they flew over the park in a helicopter.
As they flew lower they saw scores more. The corpses of endangered white-backed vultures which had fed on the toxic carcasses were dotted near each dead elephant.
“We couldn’t believe our eyes,” one hunter, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals from poachers, told The Telegraph. “We thought at first that they must have been shot. There were too many to have died of thirst or hunger.”
They flew back to camp and drove into the park after alerting government rangers as they went. “We found that elephants we saw from the air were not shot, but the tusks were gone,” the hunter said.
His group spotted a man walking into the park carrying a four-gallon bucket and a packet. They watched him dig a hole for the bucket in the sand, lower it in and then mix powder from the packet into the water.
~PUNCH
October 21, 2013
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