Two men were arrested for killing two elephants in northern Liberia.
This is what John Flomo, head of the Wologizi National Forest Park, said on Monday.
The corpses of two elephants were discovered with their tusks still intact in northern Lofa County in early October.
Police arrested two suspects this weekend.
A third is on the run.
“All the animals in the park are protected by law,” said John Flomo.
Anyone caught killing them must face the rigors of the law.
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2 men have been arrested for killing 2 critically #endangered forest #elephants in northern #Liberia, while a third suspect is still on the run.
#EndangeredSpecies #DontLetThemDisappear https://t.co/jDns0Weubo pic.twitter.com/vukmfS7XOs
- Sue Spurgin (@SueSpurgin) October 12, 2021
Still too much hunting and poaching
Liberia is home to several hundred forest elephants.
The species is threatened with extinction due to habitat loss and poaching, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
A survey published this year by the NGO Elephant research and conservation (Elreco) estimated that between 350 and 400 elephants remained in Liberia.
The country seeks to protect the species, imposing fines on anyone hunting in conservation areas.
The government also launched a national elephant action plan in 2017. But conflicts, including poaching, continue.
In 2019, police arrested a man accused of killing four elephants in a protected southeast rainforest.
Conflicts are often sparked by hungry elephants plundering crops, explained Elreco's Tina Vogt.
Liberia is a poor country which is still recovering from consecutive civil wars from 1989 to 2003 which killed 250,000 and from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, which killed 4,800 people in the country .
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Animals
Threatened species
elephant
World
Poaching
Liberia