According to Zimbabwe's National Wildlife Agency, suspected poachers have used cyanide to kill 14 elephants in Hwange National Park and elsewhere in the country since September 26.
Hwange, from where Zimbabwe's famous lion Cecil was lured and killed by an American dentist in July, is home to around 53,000 elephants.
According to Caroline Washaya-Moyo of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, six elephants were killed on September 26 in Hwange National Park and their tusks were removed. Later, on October 2, game rangers found the carcasses of a further five elephants, killed after poachers had mixed cyanide with coarse salt and maize cobs to use as bait to poison the animals.
Washaya-Moyo said a further three elephants in a Kariba game park in the north had been poisoned using oranges laced with cyanide, bringing the total of elephants killed to 14. She added that so far no arrests have been made in any of the cases and that investigations are still ongoing.
Hwange National Park elephants, vultures killed in another cyanide attack http://t.co/nT4gEAMFxb pic.twitter.com/UWLNO0iovk
— Times LIVE (@TimesLIVE) October 5, 2015
Reportedly cyanide is widely used in the mining industry in Zimbabwe and thus is relatively easy to obtain. While poachers have used rifles and traps in the past to poach elephants in Zimbabwe, they apparently started using cyanide in 2013. IOL quotes elephant conservation groups as stating that in 2013 as many as 300 elephants were poisoned at salt pans laced with cyanide, but the Zimbabwe government disputes that figure, saying only a few dozen animals had been killed.
Times Live reports that vultures, feeding on the elephants carcasses, were also poisoned and killed by the cyanide. According to that report, some of the elephants' carcasses still had their tusks intact, possibly indicating that poachers had not yet tracked down the dead animals.
Photo: Elephants in Hwange National Park CC BY-SA 2.0 by joepyrek
Source: IOL / Times Live
