Fate of the elephants

“They were good shots, very good shots,” said Mr. Onyango, Garamba’s chief ranger. “They even shot the babies. Why? It was like they came here to destroy everything.”

-- from Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits, the first in a series of three articles.

Garamba, a 1,900 square mile national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, used to have tens of thousands of elephants. Last year, there were around 2,800. This year, maybe 2,400. While Africa’s total elephant population is unknown, the latest figures, from 2006, put it at 472,269 to 689,671, but poaching has increased significantly since then.