African elephants
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:
Three years after “sustainable use” advocate
David Western replaced Richard Leakey as
head of the Kenya Wildlife Service, the service is
plagued by resignations, short funding, and poor
morale, Louise Tunbridge of the London Daily
Telegraph reported in early December––and elephants
in Tsavo National Park are under fire, while
Western’s own salary has tripled in two years.
“Glossy KWS brochures state that only 11 elephants
were killed by ivory poachers last year,” Tunbridge
wrote, “but security sources say the true figure is at
least 67.” At urging of elephant expert Daphne
Sheldrick, Tunbridge continued, the David
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust “paid for a tanker of petrol
to keep the Kenya Wildlife Service anti-poaching
teams going” until the new year, and “the British
charity Care for the Wild is paying to patch up the
park’s roads, which are in very poor repair.”