Elephant Killed for Ivory in South Africa

[Barry K. MacKay]

Ivory now on poachers' shopping list

May 24 2013 at 09:01am
By Tony Carnie


AP

Water trickles down the head of a 38-year-old female elephant named Mali.
Recent statistics presented to a wildlife trade meeting suggest that no
elephants had been poached in the Kruger National Park or other local parks
for the past five years.

Durban - An elephant has been gunned down in the Tembe Elephant Reserve in
KwaZulu-Natal, an ominous signal that Mozambique-based rhino horn syndicates
have added ivory to their shopping list.

The killing was the first confirmed case of ivory poaching in Tembe and
other South African government reserves in the past several years and has
heightened concern in conservation circles that elephants will soon be
targeted actively in this region because of surging black market prices for
ivory.

The adult elephant cow was shot several times on Monday by eight poachers
armed with at least one AK-47 assault rifle. Before they fled into
Mozambique under cover of darkness, the gang hacked out both tusks and also
chopped off part of the elephant's trunk and tail.

The killing comes just a month after the Wildlife and Environment Society of
South Africa (Wessa) warned that South Africa's elephants - largely safe
from the current ivory massacres in central and eastern Africa - could be
next as ivory prices have doubled over the past three years.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife confirmed that patrolling rangers heard the sound of
shots and tried to give chase. They had to give up because it was too dark
to follow the poachers' tracks.

The search resumed at first light the next day but the gang had already
crossed the border into Mozambique.

"Evidence points to a group of eight poachers using an AK-47 to kill the
elephant with six shots, and cutting the tusks out using sharp instruments,"
Ezemvelo officials said.

There are about 250 elephants in the 30 000-hectare Tembe Elephant reserve,
which is on the province's northern border with Mozambique.

Recent statistics presented to a wildlife trade meeting suggest that no
elephants had been poached in the Kruger National Park or other local parks
for the past five years, with very low poaching rates for the past decade.

Dismissed

The last serious elephant poaching threat in Kruger was in 1981, when
102 elephants were killed for their ivory. SanParks spokesman Ike Phaahla
dismissed reports that a number of elephant had been poached in Kruger over
the past month.

"To my knowledge, we have not lost any elephants this year to poaching.

"We have not had a problem for a long time now, but we have taken a
long-term view that the new protection measures for rhino apply to all other
species of wildlife."

Nevertheless, Wessa said the southward migration of ivory poaching was
likely to mirror the threat that was experienced by rhinos in other parts of
the continent.

"The scramble for Africa's natural resources is expanding exponentially, not
only in terms of area, but also in terms of products, including wildlife,
the society said. - The Mercury

http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/environment/ivory-now-on-poachers-shopp
ing-list-1.1521118#.UZ9dbZy-ihE
__________________________


Barry Kent MacKay
Senior Program Associate
Born Free U.S.A.
mi...@sympatico.ca
Canadian Office:(905) 472-9731