Park rangers in Benin kill an aggressive elephant and distribute its meat
Park rangers in Benin kill an aggressive elephant and distribute its meat
Hermann Boko, France24
May 14, 2021
See link
https://observers.france24.com/en/africa/20210514-park-rangers-in-benin-kill-an-aggressive-elephant-and-distribute-its-meat
for photos.
Park rangers and forestry workers killed an elephant wandering through the
town of Kandi, in northwestern Benin, in late April. Photos circulating
online showed a local organisation cutting up the carcass and distributing
the meat.
Northwest Benin is home to two national parks, Pendjari and W, whose name
comes from the twists and turns of the Niger River. These animal reserves
are part of the WAP complex (W-Arly-Pendjari), which makes up the largest
stretch of protected land in West Africa. Most of the region’s 6,000
elephants live in these parks and it is fairly common for them to wander
close to nearby villages.
However, on April 27, 2021, rangers killed “a marauding elephant in [...]
Kandi", according to a statement released on April 29, 2021 and signed by
Christophe Lemée, the director of W-Bénin park. A team made up of forestry
workers and rangers from African Parks, a South African NGO that manages
the reserves, killed the creature.
Afterwards, the forestry workers employed by the Department of Water and
Forests skinned it and cut off its tail and tusks. Then, a local
organisation helped distribute the several tons of meat that remained to
locals. Photos of the carcass circulated on social media.
The statement released by the W-Bénin national park said that they made the
decision to kill the elephant because of the "grand and persistent menace
he posed to local populations" and "the difficulty of controlling it and
returning it to its natural habitat as soon as possible".
The elephant has been wandering close to villages since mid-March. Early
on, he charged a woman he encountered in the forest, killing her. He then
injured several people in the Sam neighbourhood. A month later, he killed
two people in Sonsoro, another neighbourhood in Kandi.
Even so, quite a few people took to social media to express their sadness
over the elephant’s fate. "Killing an animal that is outside of its natural
habitat and that cost human life isn’t a solution for the increasing number
of conflicts between animals and the local population,” said one social
media user.
Another expressed his dismay that the rangers had chosen “a shortcut
instead of trying to control the animal”.
"It was an emergency, the elephant had caused a lot of damage”
David Ayegnon is the forestry captain who led the operation. He spoke to
the FRANCE 24 Observers team:
The animal was killed right next to the Alibori River. It was an emergency
because the elephant was threatening local communities, disrupting their
peace and quiet. We were under pressure.
Locals wanted us to kill it after the very first incidents in March. We
thought the animal would go back to his natural habitat himself, but then
two other people died. We started the administrative process necessary in
order to move it.
The process took about ten days but, in the end, it wasn’t successful. We
didn’t have the means to move it ourselves. It was in a gallery forest
[Editor’s note: a type of dense forest that runs along rivers in landscapes
that don’t otherwise support tree growth, like savanas], which is really
difficult to access. There are no landing strips for airplanes and there
isn’t really any form of transportation that could be used to transport an
elephant that could access the area.
We are protectors of the environment and we have no interest in killing
animals. But we were forced to make this difficult decision in order to
protect the locals. They could no longer go to the fields or go about their
daily activities. The elephant had caused a lot of damage.
Prized by poachers for its ivory tusks and its skin, the African elephant
is under threat of extinction.
It is on the Red List of endangered species compiled by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). However, Article 40 of Benin’s
wildlife law says that “in cases where wild animals constitute a danger,
the Minister of Wildlife can, by temporary or exceptional measure,
authorise hunting or killing it". This decision can be made by the
prefectoral authority in emergency cases.
"The rangers killed the elephant to calm the local population”
Françis Yabi, a preservation specialist and a teacher and researcher at the
School of Tropical Forestry in Benin, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team
that they should have "used all methods to move the elephant away from the
villages" but that he understands their decision to kill it.
The pressure of human activities has reduced the space for animals. The
natural corridors where elephants used to roam are now filled with fields
and homes. That explains why you sometimes find elephants right next to
people’s homes.
Elephants aren’t aggressive by nature. But because people are curious about
them, they will approach them and take pictures. This stresses them out and
they can get aggressive. In these cases, they should be returned to a
reserve and reintegrated there. But in Benin, there aren’t enough
veterinarians who work with wild animals to do this.
"Local people shouldn’t feel aggrieved"
In the Kandi case, the main reason that the rangers killed the elephant was
to calm the local population as it had already killed three people. These
are the trade-offs that we sometimes have to do in order to protect
wildlife.
There was also a conservation aim to sharing the elephant meat with the
local population. They shouldn’t feel aggrieved. Instead, they should feel
invested in managing the parks located in their territory. This is part of
educating people about the importance of protecting endangered animals.
It’s an essential step in the fight against poaching.
We want to avoid situations where locals take it upon themselves to kill an
animal that is causing a problem. Sometimes, they don’t understand why we
might protect an elephant even though it poses a threat to them."