Elephant stomps on a poacher who tried to shoot him [View all]

[madokie]

A few weeks ago, Noluck Tafuruka was arrested by police in Zimbabwe for possessing a rifle without a license. But he’s doing better than his partner, Solomon Manjoro. The two men allegedly snuck into Zimbabwe’s Charara National Park with the intention of bagging some valuable wild animals.

But one elephant that they tried to take down had had it up to here with poachers — and when you’re an elephant, “up to here” is pretty high. The elephant charged Manjoro and trampled him.

In recent years, poaching of elephants and rhinos in wildlife reserves in Africa has spiked dramatically, fueled largely by demand for their prized tusks and horns. Meanwhile, both conservationists and wildlife officers have struggled to protect these animals from hunters, a daunting task given the vast areas to be protected and the stealthiness of poachers who often enter the parks under cover of darkness.

Given the lack of human protection, the elephants are doing it for themselves.

http://grist.org/list/elephant-stomps-on-a-poacher-who-tried-to-shoot-him/