The murder of Cecil the Lion devastated the whole world, but as the buzz angered everyone, the slaughter of five elephants in Kenya on Monday night went unnoticed.
The remains of five elephants, an adult female and what appears to be four of her offsprings, were found in Tsavo National Park in Kenya. The armed poachers, who execute these crimes along the Kenya - Tanzania border, took their tusks, which can be worth a lot more than $1,000 per pound in Asia, The Washington Post reported.
Two alleged poachers have already been captured since the elephants' remains were found. They were captured in a mandate located in Ndoomani, Loitoktok. Found inside their houses were axes stained with fresh blood, axe handles, shoes and a hack-saw. Taita Taveta County Police Commander Richard Bitonga and Tsavo West Senior Warden Joseph Erupe said the two poachers were hunted with the help of sniffer dogs, according to the Standard Digital News.
The manhunt for the suspects is still ongoing, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
"The suspected gang is believed to comprise of four Tanzanians who operate across the Tanzania-Kenya border assisted by some Kenyans from the local area. They are believed to have used motorbikes to escape with the tusks," the KWS reported.
Eleven-thousand pachyderms live in the Tsavo West National Park, which is Kenya's main elephant sanctuary, according to Agence France-Presse. An estimated 38,000 elephants live all over Kenya, but hundreds of these elephants perish every year because of poaching.
Elephant reproduction is very slow, and they carry calves for 22 months, according to the African Wildlife Foundation. Elephants use their tusks to scavenge for food and water. Poachers murder them for their tusks, which are made of ivory, to be sold as jewelry or religious materials. The present-day poaching rate predicts that elephants may be extinct after a decade.
