Poaching Effects in Africa Undiscovered! Elephants disappear rapidly.

Although about 20,000 records, representing law enforcement actions in around 100 countries and territories since 1989 to fight against poaching, the number of elephants keep on diasppearing.

According to the Center For Conservation Biology of the University of Washington Poaching  has caused a decline of African elephants from 1.3 million to 600,000 individuals between 1979-1987. Mortality was unusually concentrated among the largest adults with the biggest tusks. Old matriarchs (the oldest adult females that provide the social glue in elephant herds) were particularly vulnerable. Their tusks are large and their groups were easier to find than solitary adult males.

Picture by Michael Nocols

Earlier this year in  Cameroon 400 elephants were slaughtered by poachers all the way from Sudan, reports from WWF say. The 63 man crew of Cameroonian soldiers form the Special Batallion of Rapid Intervention (BIR) arrived the  Bouba Ndjida National Park in remote northern Cameroon, along the Chad border too late. One could only see carcases of elephants spraying every where in the park early reporters said early reporters at the site.  International Fund for Animal Welfare ( IFAW) reported in a fire arm exchange between the poachers and the BIR left 10 more elephants dead.

The situation is really getting out of hand says environmental activists. Many think that Cameroon and other countries like Mozambique where the level of poaching is incontrolably high; have lost a treasures they could not recover in the next fourty years.

The African Development Bank stressed the need to fight against this hideous crime in their annual meeting held at Marrakech, Morocco. Great leaders of the Bank raised concern about this issue and promised to support the fight.

"Illicit wildlife trafficking is a wrong that we must relentlessly resist – our people, our natural resources and our very economic development are at risk,” said Donald Kaberuka, AfDB President. “I call on leaders across Africa and beyond to invest in our region’s future by doing all they can to strengthen law enforcement and criminal justice for these crimes.”

Picture By AP

The fight is now joined by African Footballer of the year 2012 Yaya Touré. He joined the UN(United Nations) campaign to save elephants last month and acknowledged that; there were only 800 of the "magnificent creatures" left in his country, Ivory Coast, whose national team is known as "The Elephants".

Large-scale seizures of ivory destined for Asia reached an all-time high in 2011, more than doubling since 2009, UNEP says.