In Chad, elephants make a comeback

Even after years in Africa, Lorna Labuschagne never tires of the excitement of seeing the continent’s wild animals. But a plane trip over Chad’s Zakouma National Park in late 2013 was a particularly remarkable moment for her and several colleagues who were working to save elephants in the Central African wilderness. Below, they spied at least 21 new elephant calves.

“The babies were in a marsh, wet and enjoying the water and not hiding under their mothers,” says Labuschagne, marketing and tourism officer with African Parks, the South Africa-based conservation group that manages Zakouma. “We had been seeing new calves for a few months … but never more than seven at once. As you can imagine we were ecstatic.”

The dire situation facing Africa’s elephants has become headline news. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists last month warned that poaching had caused elephant populations to reach a tipping point on the continent where more animals are being killed than are being born.

In Central Africa, the number of elephants has declined by 60 percent in just a decade. Zakouma, however, is bucking that trend. There has not been a single case of poaching inside the 19,000-square-mile park for nearly three years.

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http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/5/in-chad-elephantsmakeacomeback.html

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