Poachers in pursuit of ivory have killed nearly 500 elephants inside a Cameroon national park in the last six weeks, a highly organized slaughter that appears to be one of the worst elephant massacres in recent memory.
Officials at Bouba Ndjida National Park, located in northern Cameroon near the Chad border, said 458 elephant carcasses have been identified, but that number “may be an underestimate.” Bas Huijbregts, regional field program manager for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Cameroon, says that although the official number of dead elephants in the park is still unclear, “I wouldn’t be surprised if in the last six weeks that maybe more than half of the overall savannah elephant population in Cameroon has been killed.” The European Union has called for the Cameroon government to intervene, but so far no effective intervention appears to be occurring.
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IFAW
An elephant killed at Bouba Ndjida National Park.
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