Zimbabwean poachers kill again

Three elephants in the Matusadona National Park in the Kariba area in northern Zimbabwe and another eleven were found dead in two separate spots in the Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe.

These deaths occurred over the time of two weeks. Kidney and Liver samples were tested by the Biological Sciences Department and cyanide poisoning killed every single elephant according to Caroline Washaya Moyo, a spokesperson for the park.

In Kariba, the poachers put the cyanide inside of oranges that were then fed to the elephants. Whereas the poachers in Hwange put the cyanide on the salt licks that the elephants visit.

Six of the eleven elephants in Hwange were found without their ivory tusks, and the other five were found with their tusks suggesting that maybe the poachers were interrupted during their tusk taking. The motive to killing the elephants in Matusadona is currently unknown.

As of yet, there has been no arrests made says police commander for the Mashonaland West province, Clement Munoriarwa.

Munoriarwa also says, “We have had a number of poaching activities in the province, they are actually increasing each day. Some are done through the use of firearms and, of course, we have cases where we suspect that there is cyanide poisoning.”

The Anti-Poaching Project in Matsuadona, a privately owned organization, are offering $US400 rewards for any information guiding them to the conviction and arrest of the culprits. According to their Facebook, more elephants may have been poisoned

Elephants are vulnerable all across Africa and Zimbabwe has large elephant population. The national park estimates 100,000 elephants, although the land should ideally support 40,000.

In 2013, around three hundred elephants were killed in Hwange park after poachers laced salt pans with cyanide. A lot of vultures also died off of eating the poisoned carcass and they fear that this will occur again. Cyanide is used heavily in Zimbabwe’s mining industry and is therefore easy to obtain.