14 DAY TRIAL // A group of endangered African forest elephants now owe their lives to conservationists working with green group the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Information shared with the public says that these animals managed to really annoy people living in the Ivory Coast in West Africa by destroying some farms and crops owned by villagers.
Despite the fact that logging and mining activities are the ones to blame for the fact that the elephants ventured out of their comfort zone, word has it that some villagers were more than willing to teach the elephants a thing or two about respecting other folks' property.
Long story short, they were going to shoot the forest animals, just to make sure that they would never again go about trampling farms and crops. Daily Mail reports that, in order to keep this from happening, members and supporters of the International Fund for Animals offered to track them down and move them somewhere far away from people.
Luckily for the elephants, the villagers agreed to allow the conservationists to try and help them solve this problem, and put their plan to kill the animals on hold.
“The elephant is the national emblem of Côte d'Ivoire [Ivory Coast]. This is why, at the request of the Ivorian authorities, the villagers have shown patience so that a humane alternative to culling could be found,” says the organization's Director, Céline Sissler-Bienvenu.
“Having examined all of the available solutions, we proposed this last resort to move the elephants to safety,” the conservationist goes on to explain.
The animals were tracked down in the forest near the town of Daloa, tranquillized and transported to a national park some 250 miles (about 400 kilometers) from the place where they were found with the help of trucks.
Once in the Azagny National Park, the animals were released, but not before being fitted with GPS collars so that rangers will be able to keep a close eye on them.