2016-03-01 - , Congo.
Elephants in the vast Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) face a precarious future following reports that armed gangs of poachers are wreaking havoc in the game reserve, threatening both the animals and rangers. According to reports, last year, about 114 elephants were killed in the Garamba National Park, located in the north-eastern part of the DRC.
2015-11-10 - Ituri, Congo. Dana Sanchez
The only way to save the fast-disappearing elephant population in DRC’s Virunga National Park is for rangers to be with them around the clock, says park director Emmanuel de Merode in an MSN video. The park has lost 95 percent of its elephants. With just 195 elephants left, rangers are turning to a solution they say may be the easiest: satellite collars on the elephants.
2015-11-10 - Garamba National Park, Congo.
More than 200 elephants have been poached in Garamba since a census in April 2014 counted 1,780 elephants - down from more than 11,000 two decades ago. The shootout last month, in which three rangers and a Congolese army colonel were killed, highlights the challenge of protecting parks in a part of Africa plagued for decades by insurgencies, civil war, refugee flows and weak governments. It shows how some conservation efforts resemble a kind of guerrilla warfare in which rangers and soldiers sta...
2015-11-09 - Garamba National Park, Congo.
Ivory trade is so lucrative that gangs have been formed for the killing of thousands of elephants. The don of these gangs, Boniface Matthew Mariango, has been caught and arrested by Tanzanian officials according to John R. Platt, who writes for Scientific American as well as other publications.
2013-11-01 - Odzala National Park, Congo.
In its first push, 56 former poachers applied to become park rangers, but the park only had the ability to train 28 of them. Thursday, the parks, along with the Richardson Center—a nonprofit group set up by former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson—announced plans to make the program permanent. They’ll be building a training facility sometime within the next six months and plan to sign up more poachers in early 2014.
2012-04-25 - Garamba National Park, Congo.
In a scene of inconceivable horror, these slaughtered elephant carcasses show the barbaric lengths poachers will go to in their hunt for nature´s grim booty. The bodies were among a herd of 22 animals massacred in a helicopter-borne attack by professionals who swooped over their quarry. The scene beneath the rotor blades would have been chilling - panicked mothers shielding their young, hair-raising screeches and a mad scramble through the blood-stained bush as bullets rained down from the...
2012-03-06 - Virunga park, Congo.
Rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo´s Virunga park have a new weapon in their fight against poachers. National Park authorities have trained five bloodhound dogs to track elephant poachers after a spate of incidents. The first investigation using the dogs was carried out last week and led to the discovery of illegal weapons.
2012-02-13 - Kinshasa, Congo.
Over 500 elephants have been killed by poachers at DR Congo´s Virunga national park since 2010, a senior government official has revealed. An official of the Congolese Institute for Conservation of Nature (ICCN) decried the incidents of poaching at the Virunga national park which is considered as a World Heritage site by Unesco, Xinhua reported Thursday.
2012-02-09 - KINSHASA, Congo.
2011-11-10 - Kinshasa, Congo.
In some of the best-documented cases to date, the study shows the elephant population in the Okapi Faunal Reserve – one of the last strongholds of forest elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – saw a 50 per cent decline in the last decade due to civil war and ivory poaching, from 6,439 to 3,288. In other parks in eastern DRC, the decimation was even greater.
2010-09-07 - Kinshasa, Congo.
Police in southeastern Congo say they have arrested three men carrying six suitcases full of elephant tusks. Anti-smuggling commission co-ordinator Placide Magungu said Tuesday the three Chinese nationals were caught at Lumumbashi´s airport while trying to fly to Nairobi, Kenya. He says the men said they bought the ivory from antique dealers.
2010-08-27 - Kinshasa, Congo.
Police in northeastern Congo have seized 116 elephant tusks and arrested two men following a truck crash. Col. Sylvain Tshikez said Wednesday that the ivory was found inside jerry cans that tumbled off a truck involved in a crash. The discovery took place near the town of Kisangani in the northeastern Orientale province following the accident. The owner of the vehicle was seriously injured but was also expected to face charges.
2010-07-19 - Kinshasa, Congo.
Since being fingered as one of the countries promoting illegal trade in Ivory, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has vowed tost rengthened the struggle against the trade. To date, more than 11 tonnes of Ivory, seized from traffickers and poachers, are kept at the Central Bank of Congo, PANA learned from the executive director of the Congolese Institute for Conservation of Nature (ICCN), Cosma Wilungula.
2010-03-14 - Goma, Congo.
D.R. Congos internal wars officially ended in 2005, but for Congos elephants war goes on. An international appetite has ivory prices soaring. Other appetites are whetted: National governments who want to sell legal ivory stocks, smugglers who want to move illegal ivory across borders, poachers who want to avoid risk, but still supply smugglers. For well-armed military, poaching risk is low. In Congo, battalions of military surround national parks, the last arenas of the war and the last rema...
2009-02-28 - Kinshasa, Congo.
I was 14 years old when I went elephant hunting for the first time with my uncle. This was during the boom in ivory prices in the early 80s. We hunted mainly inside the Salonga National Park (west of TL2). My ethnic group, the Libinza , are renowned hunters and, alas, were one of main groups to decimate the Park’s elephants. My uncles were traditionally fishermen or hunters of monkeys and some large mammals including buffalo, bongo and hippopotamus. But when the price of ivory went up, the...
2008-08-26 - Virunga, Congo.
The director of one of central Africa's most important wildlife reserves has warned that rebels and soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Congo are increasingly targeting elephants in the area to supply ivory to china. In an interview with the Bloomberg news agency, Virunga National Park's director, Emmanuel de Merode, warned that as many as ten per cent of the area's elephant population has been killed by poachers in recent years. Specifically, Mr de Merode said that seven elephants have bee...
2008-08-25 - Kinshasa, Congo. Franz Wild
Rebels and soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed more than a 10th of the elephants in one of Africa's oldest national parks as demand for ivory in China grows, said Emmanuel de Merode, director of the Virunga National Park. Members of a Rwandan militia in the country's eastern North Kivu province killed seven elephants in the last two weeks, taking this year's total to 24, de Merode said today in an interview from the park's headquarters in Rumangabo.
2008-08-24 - Kinshasa, Congo. Wildlife extra
Two elephants have been killed by FDLR rebels near Rwindi, in the central sector of Virunga National Park. The FDLR are comprised of Hutu militia who were involved in the Rwandan genocide. A group of Congo Rangers had gone on patrol on the Rwindi plain encountered a group of FDLR poachers. A gunfight ensued and the Rangers were able to push the rebels back. No-one was injured on either side and the rebels escaped. The Rangers then discovered the bodies of two elephants that the rebels had killed...
2008-08-22 - Kinshasa, Congo. Joe Bavier
Poachers in Congo have killed a fifthof the elephants in Africa's oldest national park this year asChina buys more ivory, the park's director said on Friday. Rwandan rebels have killed seven Savannah elephants in thepast 10 days alone in the Virunga National Park, along Congo'seastern border with Rwanda and Uganda, Emmanuel de Merode toldReuters. "We've definitely lost 20 percent of the population thisyear and probably more," he said. "We have rangers with them,and we're trying to reinforce them...
Poachers in Congo have killed a fifth of the elephants in Africa's oldest national park this year as China buys more ivory, the park's director said on Friday. Rwandan rebels have killed seven Savannah elephants in the past 10 days alone in the Virunga National Park, along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda, Emmanuel de Merode told Reuters. "We've definitely lost 20 percent of the population this year and probably more," he said. "We have rangers with them, and we're trying to reinfor...
2008-03-09 - Kinshasa, Congo.
Garamba: “The Sudanese horsemen have killed almost 1,000 elephants in the past year and are on the verge of eliminating the last wild population of northern white rhinos.” (Norton. Interior Secretary of USA, 2004) Salonga: Large scale bushmeat hunting started rather recently (southern Salonga). Hunting with automatic weapons changed from mainly elephants for ivory to monkeys for the lucrative bushmeat trade… (reasearcher 2007), Virungas : “…four buffalo shot down, 14 colobus shot down,...
2007-08-24 - Brazzaville, Congo. Christian Tsoumou
Herds of elephants are trampling crops and polluting water sources in eastern Republic of Congo, threatening to force thousands of villagers out of their homes, the forestry minister said on Friday. Around 10,000 people in Ingouni-Moke and Olounou I, 250 km (155 miles) north of the capital Brazzaville, have been in a stand-off for more than a week with the elephants which have laid waste their manioc fields. There is a proliferation of pachyderms. Today we have nearly 30,000 whereas in the 1980s...
2007-04-03 - Brazzaville, Congo. Blake S, Strindberg S, Boudjan P, Makombo C, Bila-Isia I, Ilambu O, Grossmann F, Bene-Bene L, de Semboli B, Mbenzo V, S'hwa D, Bayogo R, Williamson L, Fay M, Hart J, Maisels F.
Most African savannah elephant populations are well known; however, the status of forest elephants, perhaps a distinct species, in the vast Congo Basin is unclear. We assessed population status and incidence of poaching from line-transect and reconnaissance surveys conducted on foot in sites throughout the Congo Basin. Results indicate that the abundance and range of forest elephants are threatened from poaching that is most intense close to roads.
2007-03-07 - BRAZZAVILLE, Congo.
Conservationists hope chillies and hi-tech geophones will help protect fields from elephants in Congo Republic, where villagers are fed up with pachyderms eating their crops. Forest elephants from the nearby Odzala-Koukoua National Park have eaten crops from dozens of fields in the area over the last few months, raising the possibility of a targeted cull to kill troop leaders which lead other animals into the fields in two problem areas.
2007-01-21 - Vitshumbi, Congo. Congo Rangers
Approximately 25 hippos and 3 elephants have been killed at Vitshumbi in the last few days. This is an area where we had estimated around 30 hippos to exist following our last aerial census of the park. The prognosis does not look good and by now it may well be too late to save the last few individuals. ICCN rangers are being prevented to carry out their legal mandate to patrol in the area and protect the wildlife due to the presence of these armed groups, and in the absence of respect for a rec...
2006-12-08 - Mouadje Bai, Congo. Zeeya Merali, issue 2581 of New Scientist magazine
By the time Steve Gulick arrived, it was too late. The poachers had struck, and elephant carcasses carpeted the floor. "You could step from body to body without your feet touching the ground," he says. "Whole elephant families lay next to each other, gunned down for their tusks." The massacre had taken place in the Mouadje Bai rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), at a spot well known among local poachers for the rich haul of ivory it can yield.
2006-10-19 - Virunga, Congo.
Lake Edward in the centre of the park in the Democratic Republic of Congo was once home to Africa's greatest concentration of these magnificent beasts. But during the last fortnight alone, more than 400 hippos have been slaughtered as well as a number of buffalo, elephants and other animals. Conservationists at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) say that a Congolese militia group is understood to have killed half the hippo population in the park since setting up a base there two weeks ago.
2006-06-20 - Virunga, Congo.
Large mammals are recovering after years of decline in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers said today. Virunga is the most species-rich park in Africa. Civil war and poaching in recent years had reduced the elephant population from 4,300 in the 1960s to just 265 three years ago. In a new census, the population was up to 340.
2005-09-30 - Kinshasa, Congo.
LRA rebels are terrorising civilians and killing wildlife in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC officials said Thursday. A band of fighters led by the group's deputy chief Vincent Otti that fled to the DRC earlier this month have terrified the local population and have begun poaching elephants in Garamba National Park, they said.
2005-02-05 - BRAZZAVILLE, Congo. BRYAN MEALER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leaders of seven Central African countries signed a landmark treaty on Saturday to work together to help save the world's second largest rain forest. French President Jacques Chirac attended the ceremony, which concluded a two-day summit focusing on threats to the great forests of the Congo Basin. The forests make up very heart of Africa, encompassing 500 million acres stretching though 10 countries. They are also home to more than half Africa's animal species, incl...
2005-01-21 - Kinshasa, Congo.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's police and army have been accused of involvement in rampant poaching that threatens to wipe out the elephants in a world heritage site in the east of the country, a study has warned. An estimated 17 tons of ivory were smuggled out of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the volatile Ituri district during the last six months of last year alone, the investigation by the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature established. "Although a sig...
2005-01-20 - Kinshasa, Congo. David Lewis
A new report on ivory poaching in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has picked out the country's fractious army and the police among those heavily involved. The study by Congo's national conservation body warns that if poaching continues at the current level, forest elephants will be threatened with extinction in the east of country. Congo's five-year war may have officially come to an end in 2003, but for conservationists working in the lawless east of the vast Afri...
2004-12-19 - MBOMO, Congo. Khaleej Times
Ivory poaching is rife in a national park in the north of the Congo Republic because unemployment is rife here, too. Just out of jail after a three-month sentence for illicit ivory trafficking, Jean is already all set for his next elephant hunt in Odzala-Kokoua National Park.
2023-10-02 - Fort Worth, United States.
The Elephant Managers Association (EMA) is proud to announce the dates for our 44th annual conference, hosted by both the Fort Worth Zoo and Dallas Zoo on October 2 to 5, 2023. The conference will inc...
2023-09-10 - Temerloh, Malaysia.
The female elephant, which died at the Kuala Gandah National Elephant Conservation Centre (PKGK) in Lanchang, was brought to the country from Assam, India in 1974. Lokimala was brought to this country...
2023-08-28 - Pattaya, Thailand.
Following Thai tradition, the offspring of Pang Sarai, 22, and Plai Ningnong, 27, was named ‘Plai Boonmak,’ symbolizing ‘Abundant Merit.’ This ceremony expressed heartfelt wishes for the well-...
2023-08-26 - Omaha, United States.
The baby elephant at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo officially has a name; Amandra. Pronounced “ah-MON-dra,” the name means “strong woman.” The zoo said it was chosen by a donor and their family. ...
2023-08-24 - Melbourne, Australia.
Melbourne Zoo’s nine-year-old elephant Man Jai has died after a sudden illness. The Asian elephant was diagnosed with an incurable disease on Monday after zookeepers noticed lethargy and swelling in...
2023-08-22 - Mysore, India.
Preparations are in full swing at the Mysore Palace premises ahead of the arrival of the Dasara elephants. The jumbos will camp here for approximately two months, undergoing training and consuming nut...
2023-08-21 - Kataragama, Sri Lanka.
An individual who fed a poisoned watermelon to an elephant called “ Asela” of the Kataragama Abhinawarama temple was taken into custody by the Kataragama police on saturday. However, Veterinary S...
2023-08-21 - Kruger National Park, South Africa.
Contraceptives are now being successfully used to prevent elephant overpopulation in South Africa. Approximately 75% of all breeding-age female elephants outside of the greater Kruger National Park ha...
2023-08-21 - Sapporo, Japan.
19-year-old Asian elephant Pearl and her newborn baby stand together at the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo. According to the zoo, this is the first time in Japan that an Asian elephant has been born ...
2023-08-18 - Hanoi, Vietnam.
Two elephants at the Hanoi Zoo have been unchained after electric fences have been replaced anew. Le Si Dung, general director of the Hanoi Zoological Garden company, on Thursday said the two elephant...
2023-08-18 - Lampang, Thailand.
The Thai elephant, recently repatriated from Sri Lanka, Sak Surin, was moved to a new home today (Friday), at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang province, after the completion of its 30-...
2023-08-16 - Wuhan, China.
Born on June 26, 2022, the male elephant marked the first time that the zoo successfully bred an African elephant. The calf's father, named A Hai, and his mother, named A Nan, came to Wuhan in 1997 fr...
2023-08-14 - Fresno, United States.
The Fresno Chaffee Zoo celebrated World Elephant Day with a big announcement. Zoo officials say their female African Elephants are pregnant. They are expected to give birth between September and Octob...
2023-07-05 - Lampang, Thailand.
It is out of question that Sak Surin, now the most famous elephant in Thailand, will have to return to Sri Lanka, as he is now under the patronage of HM the King, said Natural Resources and Environmen...
2023-07-04 - Lampang, Thailand.
On 2 July 2023 at 07.00 hrs. the Tusker, Muthu Raja (Sak Surin), was transported from Sri Lanka to Thailand for medical treatment and rehabilitation by Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane, with cooperation fro...
2023-05-27 - Colombo, Sri Lanka.
A team of veterinarians and experts will be sent to Sri Lanka next month to prepare for the return of Sak Surin, an ailing and ageing Thai elephant, to Thailand for medical treatment and physical reha...
2023-05-21 - Karachi, Pakistan.
A month after the death of Noor Jehan, an elephant in Karachi Zoo whose illness revived criticisms of the zoos, a second elephant named Madhubala is sick with a potentially fatal infection. The 18-yea...
2023-05-18 - , United States.
Callee, a 22-year-old male who has been at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium since 2019, will be moved to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, the Omaha zoo announced on Thursday. Callee's move was...
2023-05-15 - Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
In the early evening of May 11, a small crowd gathered in front of the Zoológico Dr. Juan A. Rivero, hoping for one last peek of Mundi, the elephant symbol of the zoo shut down for animal abuse in M...
2023-05-09 - Dallas, United States.
The Dallas Zoo made the heartbreaking announcement Tuesday that one of its elephants has died. The 7-year-old African elephant, Ajabu, passed away Monday after a 12-day battle with a viral infection, ...
