Though there is some practice of wild life poaching in Ethiopia the killing of six elephants in Mago National Park recently has sent shocks to the relevant authorities and institutions working on wild life conservation.
“Last year we documented up to 10 elephant killings,” he said. “But whenever there’s demand that triggers illegal poaching. What makes the latest poaching [incident] different is the high number of elephants killed within a day.”
Ethiopia has 22 national parks, two wildlife sanctuaries, five wildlife reserves, 10 community reserve areas, 21 controlled hunting areas and four biosphere reserves, according to government data. Protected areas cover about 14 percent of Ethiopia’s landmass, according to Health and Environment Ethiopia (PHE), and host 35 endemic mammal species and 16 native bird species. That makes them an important part of the country’s environmental protection efforts.
But climate risks aren’t the only threat to these areas. The activities of humans living here and their animals are an additional concern. Mago National Park which is an isolated place is situated eastern shores of river Omo. Its possession of a rich wildlife population is credited for its presenting the best wildlife scenery in the whole of Ethiopia. Mago is one of the most recently established national parks in Ethiopia; it was recognized in 1979.
The park has large number of elephants. Other than the large population of elephants, giraffes and buffalos for which the park was primarily established to safe guard, there are more than 56 different animal species such as hartebeest, topi and lelwel. Other resident animals in Mago National Park include: lions, leopards, Oryx, gerenuks, the great Kudu and zebras.
Notably, the park has very thick bushes that make game viewing very difficult. However the most popular and significant tourist attractions in the park are the Mursi renowned for interleaving disks made out clay and pricking their lips.
There are several bustard species in the park and secretary birds in the grass plains. The reverie forest along the Omo River is important for several different bird groups, including herons and egrets, kingfishers, barbets, chats and thrushes, woodpeckers, pigeons, shrikes, warblers and flycatchers. Also there are guinea fowl, bee eater and lots of different species of eagles.
The Park has over 237 bird species have been recorded. Of these six are endemics namely Banded Barbet, White-Winged Cliff Chat, White-Tailed Starling, ThickBilled Raven and Wattled Ibis. The typical species like bustards, hornbills, weavers and starlings. Omo River attracts birds from other parks like Omo Park and common water birds like Kingfishers and herons can be seen around the river.
Wildlife is increasingly seen as an integral part of the country’s heritage and not just a source of tourist income recently. To keep it safe, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the state backed Ethiopian Wildlife and Conservation Authority established a National Taskforce on Protected Areas and Wildlife Management in cooperation with local NGO and others.
Parks are suffering from the activities of humans who use their resources illegally in some cases, as well as drought and other climate impacts, leading to deforestation and degradation. The task force is aimed to monitor wildlife habitat conditions, strengthen biodiversity conservation, explore related income opportunities, and promote traditional ways of managing conflicts over natural resources.
Last week the park reported that six elephants were killed by poachers. The deaths in Mago National Park are unprecedented, say officials. Poachers have killed at least six elephants in a single day in Ethiopia, wildlife officials said on Tuesday, the largest such slaughter in memory in the east African nation.
The elephants died last week, when they ventured out of the Mago National Park in the far south of Ethiopia to drink water, Ganabul Bulmi, the park’s chief warden, told reporters.
“The poachers then removed all the tusks from the elephants. It was a mass killing. We haven’t seen anything like this before,” he said. Two other elephants might have been killed the same day, and an investigation continues. “It also has proved difficult to apprehend the perpetrators because the locals who live in the area are armed and were not willing to engage officials,” Ganabul said.
According to wildlife officials, Ethiopia had more than 10,000 elephants in the 1970s but poaching and habitat degradation have reduced the number to about 2,500 to 3,000 in recent years. Daniel Pawlos, director for trafficking and control at the Wildlife Conservation Authority, a government entity, said it was not thought that there was organized poaching in Ethiopia.
Officials suspect that most elephant tusks and finished products are slipped out of the country to China and south-east Asian countries. In 2015, Ethiopian officials burned 6.1 tons of illegal elephant tusks, ivory trinkets, carvings and various forms of jewelry to discourage poaching and the ivory trade.
Across Africa, the Covid-19 pandemic has provided opportunities for poachers, with security forces diverted to other tasks. Combined with the absence of visitors, this has left many reserves vulnerable.
The elephant population in Ethiopia has been threatened for some time due to “heightened and unavoidable human-elephant conflict”, Greta Iori, Ethiopia technical adviser for the Wildlife Conservation Society, told the Guardian last year. A population of about 500 at the Babile Elephant Sanctuary, one of the country’s most important elephant ranges, could be decimated “in a blink of an eye” through poaching, with park staff struggling to secure the sanctuary, she said.
Nationwide, conservation efforts have been stymied in recent years by civil unrest and the political transition following the appointment of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018. Around 400,000 elephants are estimated to live across Africa, but are under pressure everywhere. Government responses to the problem have varied.
The Ethiopian herald June 6,2020
BY HAILE DEMEKE
