Six elephants a day slaughtered in Mozambique

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Six elephants a day slaughtered in Mozambique

4:12 CAT | 16 May 2016

VOA / Carlos Lopes Pereira

In the last five years, Mozambique has lost 9,700 elephants. An average six a day are slaughtered for their tusks, which fetch high prices in Asia, their final destination.

The poaching is carried out by national and foreign individuals belonging to well-organized criminal networks, and Carlos Lopes Pereira, head of the Department of Inspection of the State Administration Conservation Areas (Anac), says that “poachers are now using another technique: poisoning”.

Pereira warns that if nothing is done, Mozambique will have no elephants in the not too distant future, adding that the plight of rhinos, whose average daily death toll is estimated at three, is no less serious.

According to Lopes Pereira, the only way to end the killing is prevention, detection and exemplary punishment, especially for the organizers of the trade, and that amending the existing legal framework is paramount in this context.

Source: Voa Portugues