Since May, the carcasses of 87 elephants have been discovered at Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, the elephants the latest victims of illegal poaching for the trafficking of their ivory tusks.
As the global demand for ivory continues to increase, poachers have been poisoning the natural salt licks of elephants with cyanide to bring them to the ground before removing their coveted tusks. While park authorities have recovered 51 tusks, 123 have been left to the poachers, CNN reports.
Zimbabwe's newly appointed Environment Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, told CNN that he is pushing for harsher penalties to combat the poaching of African wildlife. He has visited the park twice recently and seen the effects of poaching on the animals.
"They need to be given some extensive jail time. If it was, they wouldn't carry on doing it," the chairman of The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, an anti-poaching organization, Johnny Rodrigues, told CNN. Rodrigues accuses the Zimbabwe government of not being more proactive on stopping poaching, as well as making it seem as though the country has more elephants than it can handle.
Rodrigues also pointed out that the use of cyanide on elephants can have lasting impacts. "When other animals and birds feed on the rotting elephant carcasses, they will also die from the poison. Hundreds of animals are now at risk," he said.
The latest surge in the illicit ivory trade kills around 30,000 African elephants every year, according to The International Fund for Animal Welfare and the WWF conservation group. The International Fund for Animal Welfare calculated that one elephant dies from poaching every 15 minutes.
"Elephants were killed for their ivory in record numbers in 2011 and 2012, and some rhinoceros subspecies have become extinct or are on the verge of extinction," the organization wrote in a recent study.
"Rangers are regularly killed by poachers, and some of the world's poorest countries continue to see their wildlife decimated for the black market in wild animals and parts. Meanwhile, the profits realized from the illegal trade in wildlife have surged to levels once reserved for legally traded precious metals. Criminal and violent groups around the world have become the main actors exploiting this global industry."
Chelsea Clinton, head of the conservation group The Clinton Foundation, wrote last month that the high levels of elephant poaching has detrimental implications for the rest of the world.
"This is not just an ecological disaster; it is an economic and security threat as well," she said. "Tourism, a vital source of income for many of the most-affected African countries, is threatened if wildlife preserves are depopulated. The overall black market for illegal wildlife trade has become the fourth most lucrative criminal activity internationally, after drugs, counterfeit goods and human trafficking."
