难以想象的惨状！22头大象被屠杀并砍下它们的象牙和生殖器！
2012-04-25 17:43阅读：
Barbaric: In a scene
too graphic to show in full, the carcasses of some of the 22
massacred elephants lay strewn across Garamba National Park in the
Congo after being gunned down by helicopter-borne
poachers
Record numbers of
ivory seizures amid rise of organised crime
gangs
In a scene of
inconceivable horror, these slaughtered elephant carcasses show the
barbaric lengths poachers will go to in their hunt for nature's
grim booty.
The bodies were among a herd of 22 animals massacred
in a helicopter-borne attack by professionals who swooped over
their quarry.
The scene beneath the rotor blades would have been chilling -
panicked mothers shielding their young, hair-raising screeches and
a mad scramble through the blood-stained bush as bullets rained
down from the sky.
When the shooting was over, all of the
herd lay dead, one of the worst such killings in northeastern
Democratic Republic of Congo in living memory.
'It's been a long time since we've seen something like this,'
said Dr Tshibasu Muamba, head of international cooperation for the
Congolese state conservation agency, ICCN, as he surveyed the
macarbre scene at Garamba National Park.
After the slaughter, the killers set
about removing their tusks and genitals before likely smuggling
them through South Sudan or Uganda, which form part of an 'Ivory
Road' linking Africa to Asia.
Elephant and rhino poaching is surging, conservationists say,
an illegal piece of Asia's scramble for African resources, driven
by the growing purchasing power of the region's newly affluent
classes.
Massacred: Members of the Pilanesberg National Park
Anti-Poaching Unit stand guard as conservationists and police
investigate the scene of a rhino poaching earlier this month in
South Africa, where nearly two rhinos a day are being killed to
meet demand for the animal's horn, which is worth more than its
weight in gold
Rising trend: Elephant and rhino poaching is being driven by
the growing purchasing power of the continent's newly affluent
classes
'Biggest challenge': Conservation group TRAFFIC, which
monitors the global trade in animals, said 2011 was the worst year
for large ivory seizures in the more than two decades it has been
tracking the trends
A record number
of big ivory seizures were made globally in 2011 and the trend
looks set to continue in 2012 as elephant massacres take place from
Congo to Cameroon, where as many as 200 of the pachyderms, listed
by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as
'vulnerable', were slain in January.
In South Africa, nearly two rhinos a day are being killed to
meet demand for the animal's horn, which is worth more than its
weight in gold. More are being killed each week now than were being
taken on an annual basis a decade ago.
Conservation group TRAFFIC, which monitors the global trade
in animals and plants, said 2011 was the worst year for large ivory
seizures in the more than two decades it has been running a
database tracking the trends.
After the trade in ivory was banned at the end of the 1980s -
a policy implemented to stem a slaughter of elephants at the time -
the illegal trade declined sharply, helped by the co-operation of
Japan from where most of the demand had been coming.
Conservationists say there was a spike in the mid 1990s
driven by emerging Chinese demand that bubbled for a few years,
then dropped off as red flags were raised.
Targeted: An elephant walks through scrub in the dusk light
in Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa's North West Province.
Hundreds of the pachyderms, listed by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature as 'vulnerable', were slain in
2011
Endangered: A White Rhino and her calf walk in the dusk light
in Pilanesberg National Park. More than 180 have been killed in
South Africa so far this year
Zimbabwe-based Tom Milliken, who manages
TRAFFIC's Elephant Trade Information System, said since 2004 'the
trend has been escalating upwards again, dramatically so over the
last three years.'
Ben Janse van Rensburg, head of enforcement for the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora (CITES), the international treaty that governs
trade in plants and animals, said: 'The biggest challenge is that
in the last few years there has been a big shift from your ordinary
poachers to your organized crime groups.'
This was on display in Congo last month, where investigators
determined the poachers shot from the air because of the trajectory
of the bullet wounds.
Helicopters do not come cheaply and their use points to a
high level of organization.
Ken Maggs, the head of the environmental crimes investigation
unit for South African National Parks, said one person recently
arrested for trade in rhino horn had 5.1 million rand ($652,400) in
cash in the boot of his car.
South Africa is the epicenter of rhino poaching because it
hosts virtually the entire population of white rhino - 18,800 head
or 93 per cent - and about 40 per cent of Africa's much rarer black
rhino.
As of the middle of April, 181 rhinos had been killed in
South Africa in 2012, according to official government
data.
At this rate, more than 600 will be lost to poachers this
year compared with 448 in 2011.
A decade ago, only a handful were being taken.
