Hundreds of wild elephants found on island

May 28 2007 at 12:57PM

By Skye Wheeler

Juba - International wildlife experts have located hundreds of wild elephants on a treeless island in the swamps of south Sudan, where they apparently avoided unchecked hunting during more than 20 years of war.

"We flew out of a cloud, and there they were. It was like something out of Jurassic Park," said Tom Catterson, working on a U.S.-funded environment programme in south Sudan.

Environmentalists are keeping the location of the island in the Sudd area secret to prevent poachers from killing the animals.

Sudan's north-south civil war caused massive displacement of animals as well as people into neighbouring countries, according to southern environment ministry official Victor Wurda la Tombe.

The conflict ended with a 2005 peace agreement that gave the south semi-autonomous status, but experts say game hunting is still unchecked in a region filled with guns despite a five-year ban on hunting to allow wildlife to replenish.

Environmentalists are only now beginning to discover the extent of the damage on animal populations, and are looking for additional pockets where animals could not be reached by rebels or armed groups looking for meat and export products like tusks.

It is possible there are other herds of elephants - mostly unheard of in the contemporary south - hiding out in the Sudd, an area so flat the Nile River breaks up into hundreds of channels and lakes.

"It's not that good a habitat for elephants, but they're free of people shooting at them," said Catterson on Sunday. "You and I wouldn't stand a chance in there between the mosquitoes and crocodiles. And you'd get lost."

Although Sudan is banned from exporting elephant tusks, it is still easy to purchase ivory carvings in Khartoum's famous Omdurman market. The Sudd is also host to a wide variety of fish, birds, amphibians and reptiles.

Two oil companies have been given concession rights by the southern government in areas deep in the Sudd previously undisturbed by seismic testing and exploratory drilling.

Both the ministry and international experts are worried about the potential for damage in the fragile swamp.

"Because the land is so flat, if you interrupt drainage patterns here you can have a huge impact," Catterson said.

Reuters

I have a couple of beers with Tom Catterson every time I go to Juba. Tom has been there a couple of years now with IIRG. He went on the aerial survey with Mike Fay, who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Central African Republic in the late seventies (as I was) and who is known for his trek accross central africa published in National Geographic. Tom is much more interested in stopping Chinese funded oil exploration and habitat destruction than a defender of hunting as a conservation tool. Believe me, no amount of Nile Beer is going to make him an advocate of hunting. On the other hand, I'm glad Mike found that some elephants are still around. Wildlife in sufficient numbers may allow sport hunting in Southern Sudan, but I don't see any evidence of SCI or any other advocate for sport hunting spending any time in Juba lobbying with the Southern Sudanese government to ensure that the new legislation in the South leans in that direction. I have said this before here on AR. And of course the article states that hunting continues in spite of a ban on hunting. A classic case of calling poaching by another name. I know Tom Matonovich in Addis has close relations with some of the SPLA people but at this point I don't think he has obtained much more than the right to hunt just accross the border from Ethiopia.