Ninety elephants massacred in Botswana, in what could be Africa’s worst mass poaching
Gaborone — Ninety elephant carcasses have been discovered in Botswana with their tusks hacked off, Elephants Without Borders says, but the government is fiercely contesting that figure. The charity group said on Tuesday that the grim discovery of scores of elephant carcasses, made over several weeks during an aerial survey, is believed to be one of Africa’s worst mass poaching sprees. The charity’s scientists, who carried out the assessment with Botswana’s Department of Wildlife and National Parks, found most of the dead animals were large bulls, which would have had heavy tusks. "We started flying the survey on July 10, and we have counted 90 elephant carcasses since the survey commenced," Mike Chase, the charity’s director, told AFP. "Each day we are counting dead elephants." The elephants were shot with heavy-calibre rifles at watering spots near a popular wildlife sanctuary in the Okavango Delta. According to Chase, the carcasses’ skulls were "chopped open by presumably very sha...
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