The
2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter refers to a series
of poaching massacres of African elephants in the vicinity of
Zakouma National
Park
in southeastern Chad
.
These killings were documented in aerial surveys conducted from May
through August 2006 and total at least 100 animals. This region has
a four decade history of illegal killing of this
species; in fact, the Chad population was over
300,000 animals as recently as 1970 and has been reduced to
approximately 10,000 as of 2006. The African elephant nominally has
Chadian governmental protection, but the implementation practices
of the government (backed with certain EU help) have been
insufficient to stem the slaughter by poachers. The species
African Bush Elephant
(
Loxodonta africana) occurs in several countries of
Eastern Africa.
The most recent aerial surveys were conducted from
August 3-11, 2006, overseen by
J. Michael Fay, a
Wildlife Conservation
Society conservationist and National Geographic
explorer-in-residence. They found five
separate massacre sites. Zakouma is considered "one of the last
bastions of wildlife in all of central Africa". Commissioned by the
government of Chad and Project
CRUSSE
(Conservation and Rational Utilization of Sudan-Sahelian
Ecosystems), Fay conducted surveys In 2005 and 2006 of elephants
within Zakouma, and found populations to decline from 3885 to 3020
animals, significantly offsetting the precipitous increase of the
previous six months, although the counting error could not be fully
assessed.
Reporting details
Fay reported that he saw five men at a base camp, who ran when his
airplane approached. At another time he saw
one man on
horseback with an
automatic weapon, who fired on his
airplane. "Zakouma elephants are getting massacred right before our
eyes.", Fay relayed to reporters. "We hadn't been in the air more
than two hours when we saw our first
carcass. It was fresh, maybe just a few weeks old,
not far from the park headquarters, and the animal's face had been
chopped off, the
tusks removed." Fay and
National Geographic photographer Michael Nichols documented what
they found in
Ivory Wars, Last Stand in Zakouma.
History of Zakouma National Park
Zakouma
National Park is located between Sarh
and Am Timan
, in the
southeastern part of Chad.
Created in 1963, it was Chad's first national park, and has an area
of almost 3000 square kilometres. It is entirely surrounded by the
Bahr Salamat Faunal
Reserve. Zakouma was neglected during the period of civil
conflict, but a restoration programme, supported by the
European Union, began in 1989 and is
continuing in 2006.
Elephants within the park have protection from the Chadian
government, but the elephants who migrate outside Zakouma to forage
in the
rainy season, are not subject to
the same patrol protection as within the park. According to Stephen
Sautner of the
Wildlife
Conservation Society: "All hunting of elephants in Chad is
illegal, and the sale of ivory has been banned since 1989, though
black-market trade is increasing."
Biodiversity background
Since at least the 17th century some humans have killed certain
wildlife species in locations not under
their land ownership. Generally such actions have been conducted
for commercial exploitation to retrieve
antlers,
tusks,
hides or even as
trophies.
Besides issues of theft and immorality, there have arisen serious
consequences of
biodiversity impact.
Species often targeted for poaching include
African elephant,
rhinoceros,
tiger,
sea turtle,
ostrich and
many other. Poaching can also include live capture for commercial
sale such as taking of
primates for medical
research. Significant attrition of many species has occurred
especially over the last two centuries, sometimes leading to
endangerment or even
extinction.
Logistics of ivory trade
Killing elephants for ivory has been a major cause of the decline
of the African elephant population since at least the 1970s.
Most of
the ivory harvested is imported into China
and Thailand
. For
example, between 1996 and 2002 forty-five tonnes of ivory in
transit to China were seized by authorities. China agreed to reduce
imports of ivory; however a Chinese official Chen Jianwei has
indicated that many Chinese people are confused about the legality
of ivory imports
[345940].
Relation to regional conflict
Zakouma is
about 260 kilometres west of the conflict area of Darfur
, and is in
the path of recent warfare in Chad, thus overall security is low
and the national border is "porous in this isolated
region."
Conservation Action
In response to this devastating event,
The WILD Foundation partnered with
The Wildlife
Conservation Society and others to deter and detain poachers
using aircraft surveillance. The aircraft will focus on park
borders, where elephants are not protected.
Learn more about this rapid response conservation
effort
See also
References
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