Perhaps the most threatened of all African animals are the elephant and the rhinoceros, who are hunted and killed for their horns and ivory tusks. The illegal hunting and killing of these animals for their body parts is called poaching. The elephant and rhinoceros are shot and killed, or disabled enough that their tusks and horns can be severed at the root. The animal is then left to die.

The ivory tusks or horns are cut off with chain saws or machetes and the animal is left to rot or be eaten by scavengers. Often the animal is not dead when the poachers begin to saw off the tusks or horns and the animal dies in exquisite pain. Generally speaking, poaching is a well-organised industry. It has been more difficult to monitor and control since automatic weapons became readily available and conflict between African peoples escalated.

Black Rhinoceros

Since 1961, the rhinoceros has virtually disappeared from many African countries. Formerly abundant in numbers, the total rhinoceros population in 1960 was estimated at around 100,000. In the following decades numbers dropped to between 10,000-15,000 in 1981 and below 3,000 in 1993, with rhinoceroses existing mainly in Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya and Tanzania. Since 1980, most of the black rhino population has disappeared from its former range.

The rhinoceros is poached for its horns, which are used for medicine in China and the Far East. China¿s last rhino was killed more than 1,000 years ago. The horns are ground into powder and used in traditional medicines to treat fever, and other ailments like malaria and poisoning. The horn powder is swallowed as a potion. The rhino horns are also used to make dagger handles which are especially prized in North Yemen, where the carved rhino horn handle is a status symbol for men.

These countries depend on poachers and therefore do not participate in any treaties or trade bans on poaching. The horns fetch lots of money and their value increases as the animals and their horns become rarer to find. Surprisingly the rhino horn is made from the same substance as the horns of cattle and antelope, hooves and even human fingernails. The rhino horn though remains a prized catch.

Zimbabwe has seen its rhino populations severely threatened. There were ten years of wholesale slaughter of the rhinoceros throughout Zimbabwe during which time the black rhino¿s numbers decreased from 2,500 to 270. The Rhino Conservation plan was put in place in September 1993 creating protective zones for the animal.

It has been several years since any known poaching of rhinos occurred in Zimbabwe. The black rhino population in this country has increased again from the 270 low in 1994 to over 300. Rhino numbers have also increased in South Africa, Namibia, and stabilised in Kenya. South Africa now holds around 50% of the black rhino population.

Hunting of the wild rhino and commercial trade of its horn is banned in all African countries with wild rhino populations. It is protected under national wildlife legislation but levels of law enforcement vary. The rhinoceros is still hunted illegally despite protection laws. The World Wildlife Fund and other conservation groups have been working to save the rhino for over three decades. The Nakuru National Park in Kenya is one of the conservation movement¿s success stories. It was Africa¿s first government rhino sanctuary, where electric fencing has kept the rhinoceros well-protected.

Elephant

The African elephant¿s tusks are actually its enormous front teeth. The tusks are made of ivory which is a valuable commodity in many countries, used for making jewellery and carved ornaments. The African elephant is classified by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as ¿¿vulnerable to extinction¿¿. Ivory poaching was very intense in the late 1980s and by that time a lot of the mature breeding males had been killed which badly affected the elephant populations of Africa.

The African elephant was declared a threatened species in 1978 and upgraded in 1990 to endangered species status. In 1979 there were around 1.2 million African elephants. From 1979-89 the African elephant population almost halved with up to 300 elephants killed each day. It is estimated that around 70,000 elephants were killed a year. In Kenya alone it is estimated that 3,500 African elephants were killed per year in the early 1980s. The elephant population dropped from 1.3 million in 1977 to only 600,000 in 1997. Eighty per cent of the tusks sold came from elephants that were poached. The decline occurred mainly in east, west and central Africa.

A ban on the ivory trade in 1989 has reduced poaching and stabilised the elephant numbers but due to the slow reproduction rate it will take many years for the population to recover to its original numbers. Currently the elephant population cannot maintain a healthy reproductive rate. Like other large animals, elephants take a long time to reproduce young. They cannot breed until they are 14 years old and the pregnancy lasts for 2 years. Therefore elephants cannot breed quickly enough to replace the elephants that are being killed. The average size of the tusks of elephant offspring are also getting smaller.

In June 1997, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species partially lifted trade bans allowing Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to sell their stockpiled ivory to Japan. Conservationists fear that relaxing the bans will open the door for poaching again. In spite of the import bans, the elephant is still poached illegally, even in specially protected parks.

Even though poaching is illegal, elephants are still being killed, not by poachers, but by farmers, angry because roaming elephant herds damage their crops. Farmers hunt down the elephants and kill them, considering them a nuisance to agriculture. As man has destroyed most of the elephant¿s habitat they have no choice but to feed on the farmland vegetation.

Many young elephants are orphaned when the adults of the herd are killed for their larger tusks. Without the guidance of the mature elephants the young are lost and have little chance of survival. Elephant families are a lot like humans in that the young learn from their elders and copy the behaviour of those that are more mature.

Knowledge is passed down from generation to generation. The elder elephants teach the young ones the best migration routes and how to find the best watering holes and food. If the mature members of the herd are killed, the young are left without these skills and a wealth of knowledge dies with the elephants. If the young elephants do manage to survive, they roam unsupervised throughout the countryside.