Poachers kill 87 elephants in Botswana

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 22:00:00 +0000

In what’s being called the biggest slaughter of elephants in Africa, the carcasses of 87 of the giant beasts have been found in Botswana.

Their tusks had been hacked off .

The shocking find was made by the organization Elephants Without Borders conducting an aerial census of the animals.

The poachers had tried to hide the rotting carcasses by pulling branches over them.

The killings took place just weeks ago and coincided with the disarming of Botswana’s wildlife rangers.

Five white rhinos have been poached in that country in the past three months.

Botswana’s home to 37 percent of Africa’s elephant population, making it the largest sanctuary for these endangered animals.

In the seven years between 2007 and 2014, poachers killed 144 000 elephants.

That’s a third of the elephants left on the continent.

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