TANZANIA National Parks (Tanapa) has
dismissed as unfounded reports by a UK based online News Network,
claiming that the number of elephants has decreased in Ruaha National
Park from 8,500 to 4,200.
Tanapa’s Head of Communications, Mr
Paschal Shelutete, in a press statement refuted the April 23 reports,
saying that there have been no official figures regarding wildlife
census released by the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI).
“TAWIRI is an authority mandated to
conduct wildlife census in all protected areas in the country. Therefore
as of now they have not released any official figures regarding the
census,” he said.
The article titled “Exposed: Tanzania’s
elephant killing fields” pointed out that the main reason for the
decline is “poaching and claimed that these findings are part of the
Great Elephant Census, an ambitious two-year project to conduct an
aerial survey of elephant numbers and distribution across Africa.
“Tanzania National Parks would like to
categorically deny the accusations and it’s not informed of the release
of any official census results indicating the decrease of elephants in
Ruaha National Park,” said Mr Shelutete.
He explained that the practice of
conducting census in the protected areas including National Parks is
done on the basis of ecosystems as animals do migrate from one area to
another.
“Therefore, it is expected that any
official release of the census results should have included the whole
ecosystem of Ruaha-Rungwa and not Ruaha alone,” said Mr Shelutete.
He noted that there have been
significant improvement in efforts to fight poaching in Ruaha National
Park that has resulted in a significant decline of elephant poaching
incidences inside the park from 82 in 2012/2013 to only 36 in 2013/2014
and only 12 incidences between July 2014 and March 2015.
“These efforts will eventually lead to
further decline or halting of elephant poaching in all National Parks.
In view of the above, Tanapa would like to assure the public that once
the official results of the census are out, the public will be
officially informed,” concluded Mr Shelutete
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