Upsurge in elephant poaching
18/10/2007 20:37 - (SA)

Freetown - Authorities in Sierra Leone on Thursday expressed concern at the upsurge in elephant poaching after at least 10 were killed for meat and illicit ivory trade in the past two months.

Senior wildlife official Kailie Bangura said the animals were killed in two wildlife parks in the remote northern Outaba Kilimi and Loma Mountain parks near the border with Guinea.

He suspected the elephants fell prey to foreign hunters.

"These illegal hunters are killing these animals because of their tusks and meat," he said.

Kenneth Moore, a wildlife officer, said with the last official elephant census in 1989 there were about 5 000 animals, but the war slashed the number down to between 1 000 and 2 500 according to an unofficial survey carried out in 2002.

Some experts speculated in 2005 that Sierra Leone's elephant population had been decimated to no more than a couple of hundred.

The former British colony was wracked by a 10-year civil conflict between 1991 and 2001.

The war, funded by blood diamonds and considered one of the most brutal in modern history, left around 120 000 people dead and thousands more mutilated and traumatised.


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