Poacher trampled to death by elephant herd
A poacher is trampled to death by elephants in Kruger National Park. Despite a trade ban, tens of thousands of elephants die every year.
While fleeing from rangers in South Africa's Kruger National Park, a poacher was killed.
In South Africa's famous Kruger National Park, a suspected poacher has been killed by elephants. The poacher and two accomplices had fled from park rangers and encountered an elephant herd with young, according to the national parks authority SANParks . The elephants trampled the illegal hunter to death.
One of the accomplices was arrested, while the third man managed to escape, it was reported. Rangers were also able to recover a rifle, an axe, and a bag of supplies. The search for the third suspect was still ongoing on 18 April 2021.
Tens of thousands of elephants killed every year
Despite an international ban on trade in ivory , tens of thousands of African elephants are killed every year for their tusks. According to the conservation organisation IUCN, there are an estimated 415,000 elephants remaining on the continent.
Park chief Gareth Coleman congratulated his team on the arrest and expressed his regret that a person lost their life during the operation. He emphasised the importance of the rangers' work in the fight against poaching . “Poaching threatens lives, destroys families, and diverts urgently needed resources away from job creation and development in the fight against this crime.»
Kruger Park is one of South Africa's most important tourist attractions and ranks among Africa's largest national parks. It is roughly half the size of Switzerland and is renowned for the wide variety of wild animals it hosts, including elephants, lions, rhinoceroses, leopards, and buffalo.
More on the subject of recreational hunting: In the dossier Poaching and hunting crime in Switzerland we document cases, legal questions and recurring patterns. What the research says about this is shown by Hunting fact-checked: the state of research.
The position of IG Wild beim Wild: IG Wild beim Wild rejects recreational hunting. Our model is the canton of Geneva, which has managed without recreational hunting since 1974: without hunting seasons, without hunting dogs, without driven hunts, without high seats, without the animal cruelty and crime that go hand in hand with hunting season elsewhere. What has worked there for over fifty years disproves every position paper by JagdSchweiz. An association that bases its policy on claims it refutes in its own documents is not a professional organisation, but a factory for misinformation.
