Elephant
Three months after Cecil the lion was killed, a very huge never-before-seen 40 to 60-year-old elephant was taken down by a German hunter around the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe.
According to The Telegraph, the hunter paid $60,000 (£39,000) for a permit in a private hunting concession to take down the huge-tusked elephant. Each tusk weighed about 120lb.
The killing of the elephant was condemned conservationists and safari operators who argued it should have been preserved because of its magnificence.
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An operator of a photographic safari firm in Gonarezhou, Anthony Kaschula also took to Facebook to explain why taking down the elephant was a big loss.
“We have no control over poaching but we do have control over hunting policy that should acknowledge that animals such as this one are of far more value alive (to both hunters and non-hunters) than dead,” he wrote, according to The Telegraph.
“Individual elephants such as these should be accorded their true value as a National Heritage and should be off limits to hunting. In this case, we have collectively failed to ensure that legislation is not in place to help safeguard such magnificent animals.”
