Elephants Exterminated in Southern Africa

There is a New Poaching Hotspot in Africa and its not where people would normally expect it to be. 

A chunk of territory in southern Africa about the size of France has long been considered one of the last strongholds of the African elephant. 

The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, better known as KAZA, straddles Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe and was believed to hold as many as 250,000 elephants.

But all is not well there. The latest statistics from the 2016  Great Elephant Census, an ambitious elephant-counting project led by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen’s private company, Vulcan, paints a grim picture in part of KAZA’s Zambian portion.

“The Kwando area of southwestern Zambia is experiencing the worst poaching of any major savanna elephant population,” said Mike Chase, the coordinator of the project.

The survey results for Zambia, released in March, show that overall elephant numbers in the country are stable. But in the southwest, especially in the 3,100-square-mile (5,000 square kilometers) Sioma Ngwezi Park between the Zambezi and Kwando Rivers, the declines have been catastrophic—an estimated 95 percent drop in elephant numbers.

The Great Elephant Census counts both live elephants and elephant carcasses to establish a carcass ratio. A ratio of no more than 8 percent allows a population to remain stable. But in Sioma Ngwezi Park, the team recorded 48 live elephants and 280 carcasses—that’s a staggering 85 percent carcass ratio.

This is a Bad Situation all around. This is happening largely because in this part of Zambia there is no Eco- Tourism at all, No Wildlife Researchers etc. 

Only God Can save the Giant Mammals of Kaza. 

Credits : 

Elephants Wiped Out on Alarming Scale in Southern Africa

 By Adam Cruise 

 National Geographic 

 April 6, 2016