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An Elephant Trampled a Poacher to Death in Zimbabwe

It's a small victory for elephants even as poaching continues to threaten their thinning herds.
An elephant at a watering hole in Hwange, Zimbabwe, via BARMCD/Flickr

Amid the ongoing battle to protect elephants from a growing onslaught of poaching, some small evidence that elephants won't go down easily: the trampled remains of a suspected poacher named Solomon Manjoro were found in Zimbabwe.

Manjoro's body was found in Charara National Park after police arrested an accomplice, Noluck Tafuruka, for possession of an unlicensed firearm. According to the Sunday Mail, the pair had entered the park in mid-April with a pair of rifles with poaching in mind. The Telegraph reported that the pair had faced the elephant head-on in an attempt to shoot it; that apparently didn't work, as the "jumbo" (as the Sunday Mail called it) reportedly charged and took Manjoro down.

It's a small victory for elephants even as poaching continues to threaten their thinning herds. Just a week ago, another pair of poachers were arrested in Zimbabwe, which led to the seizure of 224 kilograms of ivory. Like with rhinos, elephants are being poached at record levels. Zimbabwe is only one piece of the puzzle, as all of Africa's elephants are under threat. For example, two thirds of Africa's forest elephants were killed in the last decade.

That means that while a story about a poacher being trampled is novel, elephants aren't finding much success defending themselves from poachers' rifles. Thankfully, there's growing pressure on the counties fueling the ivory trade to put into place actions to curb it. Unfortunately, we're still a ways away from seeing of those actions will pay off.

@derektmead