14 DAY TRIAL // The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have recently issued a new report stating that, in just 15 years, 75% of the elephants inhabiting one of said country's wildlife reserves were killed by poachers.
Information made available to the general public says that, although poachers have long taken a special interest in slaughtering the animals living in the Okapi Faunal Reserve, the situation took a turn for the worse in 2007.
Thus, since the aforementioned year and up until present days, the wildlife reserve's population of forest elephants has declined by a whopping 37%.
Apparently, these killing sprees eventually translated into just 1,700 forest elephants being left to inhabit these regions, Mongabay reports.
Commenting of the findings of this report, John Robinson, currently employed as WCS executive vice president for Conservation and Science, argued as follows:
“The global poaching crisis for elephants is at epidemic proportions. The world must come together to recognize this problem and to stop the killing, trafficking, and demand, or we will lose elephants in the wild in our lifetime.”
As explained on several occasions, the elephants living in both the Democratic Republic of Congo and in other parts of the world are killed by poachers for the sole purpose of collecting their tusks, which are later sold on illegal markets worldwide.
Most of the times, these elephant tusks are sold to customers in Asia and China, yet recent news say that Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand are now experiencing a rise in the demand for such animal body parts.
Seeing how the people killing elephants do not shy away from attacking the rangers and the conservationists trying to protect them, many people maintain that poaching activities also constitute a threat to local and even international security.
Because of this, several green-oriented groups demand that efforts be made to put an end to such illegal activities as soon as possible.