Mass-Murder of a Singular Kind
by Simon Ward
(From "The Southern Africa Trumpet", No.1, June, 1997. Published by the Southern Africa Forum for Communities and NGOs [SAFCAN] for CITES C.O.P. 10. Reproduced with permission.)
"Did you know," says the straight man, "that a person gets shot in America every 30 seconds?" "He must be really dumb," responds his sidekick. "You'd think he'd have learned his lesson by now!"
Aah, but in the case of Africa's elephants, it's no joke. In recent months, a whole herd of environmental journalists have claimed to scoop the latest massacre of elephants at the hands of ivory traders, but the true story could lie elsewhere. These majestic creatures could be a lot dumber than we think. [Is that elephants or environmental journalists? Ed.]
The issue of shooting elephants is hot right now, because the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is about to be asked to consider whether certain countries with lots of elephants can start trading in ivory again. This practice, which the "civilised world" has condemned as heinous, was banned in 1989.
Thus it was that last September, readers of Time magazine and Internet surfers were appalled to learn of 200 elephant corpses found in the Mouadji region of the Congo, close to its border with Gabon. By November, the total had climbed to 230, although it was unclear whether this was because 30 more had bitten the bullet or because someone had done a proper count.
Recalcitrant Poachers
How could such carnage be explained? Surely the elephants had been shot for their ivory, but the CITES ban had removed the incentive for poachers, claimed its supporters, so whatever happened in the Congo must have been an aberration.
Wrote Ron Orenstein, of the International Wildlife Coalition, on the Internet, the killings must have taken place over a prolonged period. "The problem with the Congo story is not that someone might want to poach 200 elephants. It is that trying to do so AT ONE TIME over a few days, as the story implies, including detusking the carcasses and taking the ivory away, presents such a massive logistical problem that it is hard to see how it could have been physically possible. That makes me wonder at least if the number has been exaggerated."
Opponents of the ban, meanwhile, insisted it had never been an effective deterrent to poaching, and now the evidence was there for all to see.
Whatever, the story had soon run its course, and probably would have died a natural death had it not fallen into the hands of one of the most outspoken critics of the ivory trade: the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
Shocking "Findings"
"Setback for Ivory Trade as Poachers Kill 280 Elephants," cried theTimes on December 12, reporting on the shocking "findings" of IFAW's African director. David Barritt had just "discovered the rotting corpses of 280 elephants killed in a recent poaching operation near Congo's border with Gabon ... the largest single mass killing of African elephants."
Given the time lapse, use of the word "recent", and the fact that the first 230 had been discovered by others, these were surely fresh cadavers.
More power to those calling for a lifting of the ban, one might have thought, as the evidence mounted that it was not working. Quite the opposite, said IFAW.
Poachers had been told by their employers that "it was all right to kill the elephants because next year the trade in ivory is going to be resumed legally," said Barritt to the Times. In other words, just talking about lifting the ban was sending the wrong message to poachers.
More Blood-Letting
Perhaps he was onto something, because a month later the blood was flowing again. "Africa's biggest elephant graveyard has been discovered," cried the International Express on January 15. "Amid the chaos of this killing field, an entire herd of 280 elephants - including calves and pregnant females - is left dead or dying in agony."
The Express did not say why ivory traders should shoot calves. Nor did it make a fuss over a herd of elephants numbering 280, which experts tell us is by far the largest ever recorded. The important point was that since some of them were still in their death-throes, these corpses and corpses-to-be had to be fresh as daisies, right?
But mercifully David Barritt, the source of this shocking information, could set our troubled souls at rest. IFAW was funding a team of guards to prevent any more from being killed.
And Still More ...
Well, they can't have done a very good job, because five weeks later the world was rocked again. "Pictures reveal fresh slaughter of elephants," reported the Sunday Telegraph on February 23. Now was that fresh fresh, or "fresh" as in fresh gorgonzola?
"The bodies of hundreds of elephants massacred by machine-gun fire have been discovered in Congo, presaging a new and bloody upsurge in ivory poaching," it reported. "About 280 elephants, including mothers and their calves, were slaughtered in one of the biggest poaching operations in recent years."
Could the British press have discovered a curious tendency for elephants with a death wish to form groups of 280, or was this a coincidence? Whatever, the body count was by now approaching four figures.
"These animals had been gunned down where they stood, and many will have died in great pain, sprayed with machine-gun fire," said ... David Barritt. But fear not. IFAW was still funding that team of guards.
This tragic tale of our fellow animals suffering at the hand of Man raises one of two issues, as far as we can see, and neither has anything to do with the effectiveness of the CITES ban.
Either an awful lot of elephants (plus or minus 280) have been shot for their over-sized molars that are inexplicably worth a lot of money - in which case the efficacy of IFAW's guards must be questioned.
Or there were once 280 elephants which were so dumb they allowed themselves to get shot four times - in which case they were probably not worth saving anyway.
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