African big game poaching surges on Asian affluence

[xchrom]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/04/24/uk-africa-poaching-idUKBRE83N0RR20120424

(Reuters) - The hit job was done by professionals who swooped over their quarry in a helicopter before opening fire.

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, 22 elephants 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.

After the slaughter in Garamba National Park the killers set about removing the animals' tusks and genitals. The grim booty was likely smuggled through South Sudan or Uganda, which form part of an "Ivory Road" linking Africa to Asia.

[marmar]

1. Makes you wish the elephants were carrying the guns.

[Nihil]

3. Or certainly doing the "removal of genitals".

[ladjf]

2. The human race is the sorriest species on the Planet. We are nothing but destroyers of life

everywhere.

Some concerned Countries should immediately set up a task force of attack helicopters and
stop this carnage.

[Meiko]

4. Please aim that gun at youself

You condemn the entire human race for the actions of a few? How about the countless number of people involved in stopping this type of nonsense, are they "destroyers of life" too......

[Dead_Parrot]

5. For every ranger there's 10,000 morons

So yeah, on average we suck.

[pscot]

6. Lucky us. If we vwere all complicit

the biosphere could be in serious trouble.