500 elephants killed in DR Congo"s national park

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.

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500 elephants killed in DR Congo"s national park

2012-02-09 - 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.

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More than 50-per-cent decline in elephants in eastern Congo due to human conflict: UBC research

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.

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Congo police arrest 3 men carrying 6 suitcases full of elephant ivory

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.

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116 elephant tusks seized in Congo after crash

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.

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DR Congo intensifies fight against Ivory trafficking

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.

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From Elephant Poacher to Conservation Hero

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...

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Congo Elephants Poached by Rebels for Ivory Sales to China

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.

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Two elephants killed by Hutu militia in Virunga

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...

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Ivory poachers decimate Congo elephant population

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...

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Ivory poachers decimate Congo elephant population

2008-08-22 - Kinshasa, Congo. Joe Bavier

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...

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A Geographic look at bushmeat hunting in DRCongo.

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,...

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Otti"s LRA Eat Congo Jumbos

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.

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Officers accused of poaching elephants in Republic of Congo

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...

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Report: Congo Police, Army Involved in Elephant Ivory Poaching

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...

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24 years on Internet!

ELEPHANT NEWS was created on 2001 in Munich, and relaunched in Phnom Penh in 2020, with almost 8 000 links to news articles about elephants on the Internet. A number of articles now also have a cross reference to the elephant database, either for individuals elephants and/or to an article about the location holding