Poachers Slaughter 100 Elephants in Chad

WASHINGTON, DC, August 31, 2006 (ENS) - One hundred elephant carcasses, most of them missing only their tusks, have been discovered by a team of scientists near Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad.

A team led by Mike Fay, a conservationist with the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society who is also a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, sighted five separate elephant massacre sites totaling 100 individuals during a survey made August 3 to 11 from their small plane.

All the elephants were killed since the end of May, more than 50 of them in the days just before they were found. At one of the killing sites Fay observed a camp with six horses and five men, who quickly packed up as the plane flew over.

"Zakouma elephants are getting massacred right before our eyes," Fay said. "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."

All hunting of elephants in Chad is illegal, and the sale of ivory worldwide has been banned since 1989, but still the lucrative black market trade is increasing.

Two of the 100 elephant carcasses sighted by Mike Fay and his team earlier this month. (Photo by Mike Fay © 2006 National Geographic)

No one was hurt in the incident.

Fay, who was also on assignment for "National Geographic" magazine, says the discovery is evidence of a major poaching problem on the borders of one of the elephants' last central African strongholds. He says the elephants were killed as they crossed the park's borders during the wet season in search of forage.

Elephants in the park have enjoyed strong protection from the Chadian government and the European Union, but the large percentage that leaves the park during the wet season has not been as well protected.

Zakouma National Park makes up part of a Texas sized region of central Africa that until the 1970s was one of the continent’s most intact wilderness areas, abundant in wildlife.

Thirty years ago some 300,000 elephants inhabited the area, but that number has diminished to about 10,000 today.

Fay's team is working with the Chadian government and the European Union project CURESS, which works to conserve the environment of southeastern Chad, particularly Zakouma National Park.

Encompassing nearly 1,900 square miles, Zakouma is now one of the last bastions of wildlife in all of central Africa, due to conservation funding from the EU. The first phase of EU support, which funded rehabilitation of the park, had a budget of 1.6 million euros and lasted from 1989 to 1993. The second phase, with almost three times the level of financing, lasted from 1993 to 1997 and was followed by a transition phase utilizing special funds which lasted until 2002 and covered eco-development of the surrounding population.

The third phase, entitled Conservation and Rational Utilization of Sudan-Sahelian Ecosystems (CURESS), which started in December 2002, is funded in the amount of 8.5 million euros. It emphasizes activities in support of the communities surrounding Zakouma, who are participating in the conservation effort.

Conservationist Mike Fay addresses the Fifth IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, September 2003. (Photo by Earth Negotiations Bulletin)

The latest survey, partly funded by National Geographic, was commissioned to assess the level of poaching during the wet season, when the elephants leave the park to forage and are vulnerable to attack.

Zakouma is only about 150 miles west of the conflict area of Darfur and is in the path of recent rebel activity in Chad, so security is low and borders are porous in this isolated region.

Fay took information of the massacres to Chadian and EU officials, who are enacting an emergency plan with contributions from the African Parks Foundation and others. They plan to increase aerial surveys and extend patrols outside the park through the wet season that ends in late September.

They hope to raise funds and awareness to control poaching in coming years with aerial patrols as well as to increase ground security and information gathering.

Fay is best known for his 2,000-mile Megatransect hike across central Africa in 1999 and 2000, as well as inspiring and facilitating the creation of 13 national parks in the African nation of Gabon.