In Kenya, poachers killed five elephants in Tsavo West National Park on Monday night. The carcasses were recovered by rangers on Tuesday morning — what appeared to be an adult female and her four offspring, their tusks hacked off.
Investigators suspected that the poaches cross the Tanzania and Kenyan border illegally, sniped off the elephants, extracted the tusks and went back into hiding safely at home in Tanzania. Because this is a cross border incident, Kenyan officials had little authorization to continue. The 50 miles porous border between the two country combined with a lack of development funding makes border security and conservation work difficult.
It’s not just Kenya where mass elephant killings occur. In Congo, 30 elephants were killed in 15 days earlier this year in Garamba National Park. The illegal wildlife trade is valued at $7 billion to $10 billion annually.
The massacre of these animals gives global citizens like us more of a reason to step up and make our voices hear. Sign our petition and support the initiative to have the UN ban hunting worldwide.
Original article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/as-the-world-mourned-cecil-the-lion-five-of-kenyas-endangered-elephants-were-slain-10426397.html