Johannesburg: One of Africa’s largest wildlife preserves is marking a year without a single elephant found killed by poachers, which experts call an extraordinary development in an area larger than Switzerland where thousands of the animals have been slaughtered in recent years.
The apparent turnaround in Niassa reserve in a remote region of northern Mozambique comes after the introduction of a rapid intervention police force and more assertive patrolling and response by air, according to the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the reserve with Mozambique’s government and several other partners.
Monitoring of the vast reserve with aerial surveys and foot patrols remains incomplete and relies on sampling, however. And despite the sign of progress, it could take many years for Niassa’s elephant population to rebuild to its former levels even if poaching is kept under control.
Aggressive poaching over the years had cut the number of Niassa’s elephants from about 12,000 to little over 3,600 in 2016, according to an aerial survey. Anti-poaching strategies from 2015 to 2017 reduced the number killed but the conservation group called the rate still far too high.
The new interventions, with Mozambican President Felipe Nyusi personally authorising the rapid intervention force, have led partners to hope Niassa’s elephants “stand a genuine chance for recovery,” the conservation group said. “It is a remarkable achievement,” James Bampton, country director with the Wildlife Conservation Society, told AP. He said he discovered the year free of poaching deaths while going through data. The last time an elephant in the Niassa reserve was recorded killed by a poacher was May 17, 2018, he said.
