Botswana denies surge in poaching

Botswana has rejected claims of a surge in elephant poaching made by a leading conservation charity and put on display carcasses of animals allegedly slaughtered for ivory – some with tusks still intact.

Elephants Without Borders claimed two weeks ago that it had discovered at least 87 elephant carcasses during a routine aerial survey of conservation areas, suggesting a sudden spike in killings in recent months.

The claims led to global media attention and questions were raised about Botswana’s anti-poaching efforts.

But officials demanded to see the elephant advocacy group’s proof and subsequent visits to the Chobe National Park located just 19 corpses – only six of which were found to be poaching victims.

“Last year, the whole year, we lost about 81 elephants. So I can say it’s just normal, like any other year, we haven’t recorded any mass killing,” department of wildlife deputy director Churchill Collyer said.

Officials said that since the start of the year, a total of 63 elephants had died across the country and that there had been no noticeable increase in elephant poaching.

Botswana, home to Africa’s largest elephant population, is on the frontline of the battle against the illicit trade in ivory.

This week, the country’s authorities took journalists to the vast Chobe National Park in the northeast which has more than 100,000 elephants.

Several hours spent flying over the reserve which borders Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, showed six elephant carcasses, four of which appeared to have been poached.

“This is almost more than six months since it was killed,” Collyer said of one animal with dried, perforated skin and missing tusks.

Around 20km away, another decomposed carcass was found but the tusks were still intact, suggesting it was not killed for ivory.

“The cause of the natural death could be old age, diseases, or starvation during the drought season,” anti-poaching deputy brigade commander George Bogatsu, a six-year veteran of the fight against poaching, said.

The animal was one of those counted by Elephants Without Borders as poached.

The group said that an unusually high number of elephant carcasses were seen by the survey team.

It had been contracted by Botswana to conduct aerial elephant population surveys.

Before concluding the work, the group’s director, Mike Chase, said the survey pointed to elephant poaching on a scale by far the largest in Africa.

He said it coincided with the disarming of Botswana’s rangers earlier this year. – AFP