Botswana: Horrible Giraffe Poaching Incident

This is a news update taken from the Elephants of Botswana blog on Wildlife Direct

“Yesterday afternoon Sim and I headed up to Tubu Lodge (our neighbours) to help advise on an elephant that keeps digging up the water pipes. They are only 16km away as the crow flies but it takes a good 90 minutes to drive there and more when you have issues to deal with on the way.

After we had crossed most of the deep water crossings and headed for the truck road that would take us to Tubu we smelt something dead and just by the road we could see vultures and marabou storks feeding on the carcass. We approached and found it be to a giraffe. After checking for predators I got out the car as something did not look right – on closer inspection it was obvious that this giraffe had not died of natural causes, he had been poached. Chased on horseback to the point of exhaustion and then killed. He had torn off the skin off one of his knees, so he must have hit the ground with huge force to do that. Both of his ears had been cut off, which we presume is for muti (traditional medicine).  It was heart breaking to see him like this and imagine his last minutes of life.

We radioed it through to the office who informed the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, but there was little they could do about this incident, except add it to the list of poached animals found in the area, as it was already a day or two old and the trial for the poachers would be long gone.

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