Gabon’s forest elephants slain for ivory at alarming rate

Elephants eating in La Lope National Parc, central Gabon. -AFP filepic

MIAMI: Poachers are killing elephants for their ivory at an alarming rate in the central African nation of Gabon, leading to a loss of 80 percent of the population in the last decade.

Some 25,000 elephants have been slaughtered in Minkebe National Park, an area that had been considered a sanctuary, said the report in the journal Current Biology.