Poachers have killed 28 forest elephants in recent weeks, as the price for their ivory drives this very barbaric hunt. The national parks in southeast Cameroon are home to a dwindling population of African forest elephants due to poachers, who have reduced the population of these creatures 62% in the last decade according to Yahoo News on Wednesday March 13, 2013.
With this amount of elephants gone in such a short amount of time, these beautiful creatures face extinction, according to conservationists. The significant populations of these elephants are found in the parks in Cameroon, parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon.
The conservation group WWF found evidence of 28 elephants killed in southeast Cameroon. Between Feb.. 10 and March 1, they found the carcasses of 23 elephants stripped of their tusks. Another five were found without their tusks in the Lobeke National Park.
Ivory sells for hundreds of dollars per kilogram on the black market, with most going to Asia, especially China. This makes elephant poaching enticing to the criminal element. Military helicopters and 600 soldiers equipped with vision gear were deployed to Cameroon to protect the park and wildlife in December.
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