Elephants in Mozambique are suffering and it has nothing to do with old age. Elephant poachers have killed almost half of the elephants there to sell their ivory tusks. Over the past five years, these elephants have been killed relentlessly and the population is getting extremely low. There has been a forty-eight percent decline within the elephant population, with almost ten thousand killed. Elephant poachers in Mozambique are the reason for this increasing death toll in elephants.
Sharp Decline Due to Elephant Poachers in Mozambique
The Mozambique elephant numbers were somewhere close to twenty thousand, but now just a little more than ten thousand remain. The poachers in Mozambique have been rampant within the country’s most important elephant populations. Niassa National Reserve in northern Mozambique has suffered the worst.
Elephant poachers in Mozambique seemed to have arrived from Tanzania, where the elephant population has already suffered drastically. It is not so simple to stop these poachers, especially since the north is remote and can be seen as a poorly governed area with a certain level of known corruption. District police, as well as border guards are being paid off and will even rent out their own firearms to poachers.
Black Market Ivory Still the Culprit
In some parts of the country, half of the elephants that were seen appeared to be dead already. Each year, poachers kill an estimated thirty-thousand elephants across Africa. The ivory trade is still holding strong because of it and is sent mainly to China, as well as other Asian countries.
Elephant tusks are used to be carved into statues and to make jewelry. Each year, thousands of elephants are killed across Africa to support this trade. With almost 500,000 elephants killed, they are down from several million a century ago. The killing of these majestic animals has been criminalized, but the process has been slow in curbing the killing. Poachers and corrupt officials would rather line their pockets than preserve the animals.
Major Seizure of Ivory and Rhino Horn
Just a few days ago, police in Mozambique seized 1.3 tons of elephant ivory and rhino horns. The result meant that almost two hundred animals were murdered. This was the country’s biggest find when it came to illegal wildlife products. Poachers in Mozambique are the reason for thousands of deaths. A new law passed in June that toughens the penalty for poaching, but it may be a little too late. Hefty fines and jail time of about twelve years could be the penalty for poaching, yet this law will only start being effective at the end of the year.
