In March I wrote about the coordinated slaughter of elephants early this year by poachers in Cameroon. The scale of the killings is hard to absorb: well over 300 are thought to have been killed within the span of a few months, wiping out a significant portion of the country's elephant population.
To mark World Elephant Day on Sunday, the W.W.F. has released more information about the killings along with video of dessicated corpses stripped of their tusks, which were the prime target of the poachers. (Warning: it's not easy to watch.)
Reports about the slaughter appear to have galvanized the Cameroon government: 60 new ecoguards have been deployed to secure Bouba N'Djida National Park, where the k illings took place, W.W.F. said. There are also plans to recruit an additional 2,500 game rangers over the next five years and to establish a new national park authority.
Still, protecting precious wildlife will be a struggle, and not just for Cameroon. Soaring demand from an increasingly affluent Asia has caused poaching to skyrocket, threatening the very survival of rhinos, tigers and elephants, according to a report last month from the W.W.F. The group criticized Vietnam, Laos and Mozambique, among others, saying they were doing far too little to combat illegal poaching and trafficking.
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