Charities
and ministers voice concern after discovery of carcasses with tusks hacked off
Agence
France-Presse
Tue 4 Sep
2018 17.21 BSTLast modified on Tue 4 Sep 2018 18.07 BST
Ninety
elephant carcasses have been found in Botswana with
their tusks hacked off, in what is believed to be one of Africa’s worst mass
poaching sprees.
Most of
the animals killed were large bulls carrying heavy tusks, Elephants Without
Borders said on Tuesday.
The
discovery was made over several weeks during an aerial survey by scientists
from Elephants Without Borders and Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and
National Parks.
Mike
Chase, the charity’s director, said: “We started flying the survey on 10 July,
and we have counted 90 elephant carcasses since the survey commenced. Each day,
we are counting dead elephants.”
The wild
pachyderms were shot with heavy-calibre rifles at watering spots near a
wildlife sanctuary in the Okavango Delta.
According
to Chase, the carcasses’ skulls were “chopped open by presumably very sharp
axes, to remove their tusks”. In some cases, the trunks were also removed.
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