Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Elephant graveyard


The only Elephant we got sight of in Waza park was the skeleton of one. I thought this was really quite cool and we got some great pictures. Each bit I could identify was of course huge, I kept saying to Joe - look there is a vertebrae - its huge, look at the jaw - it's huge, the skull is huge. Then we took a close look at the skull with the guide, no tusks. This elephant was killed by hunters. But this a protected national park I thought, yes it is but the local people and some who come from Chad kill the guards so they can have free roam of the park. killing the elephants for tusks, the antelope and monkeys for bush meat. It is very sad, the park are doing what they can to stop it but with the risk of losing men they have to choose what is more important to protect. The local people are clever, they do not use guns as that would bring attention to themselves, they use poison. They go about putting poison in the grass where they observe animals feeding, then during the night come and collect up the dead animals taking what they want.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Heather,

It was fun talking with you in Limbe. Keep in touch and take care!

Best wishes,

Sarah