Poachers devise new method to kill elephants: poisoned spike traps
…At least Winston died relatively quickly which can’t be said of Keyhole, a big bull fully in his prime at 40 years old. He was the son of Esmeralda of the EA family. Born in 1970, he was just a two-year old when we first met him. He got his name because he had a keyhole-shaped slit in the bottom of his left ear. A few years ago he broke the same ear and that made him even easier to identify. Keyhole came into musth regularly and we feel fairly confident that he sired some offspring. The poachers have devised a new and very cruel way of killing elephants. They embed spikes or nails in a piece of wood, cover the spikes with a powerful poison, and bury it on an elephant path. We had been hearing about these spike traps for a while and several elephants have died from what appeared to be wounds in their feet. It wasn’t until another conservationist sent us a photo of one of these traps found outside of Tsavo National Park that we realized how deadly they are. Keyhole was reported limping badly in June. The Kenya Wildlife Service Veterinary Department was alerted and a vet came down and treated him. He did not improve and was treated again, but it did not help. It was obvious that he was in terrible agony: he could barely walk and his whole body was swollen. We are fairly sure he stepped on poisoned spikes. KWS decided to shoot him, but then he was found dead on August 18. We can’t bear to have another elephant die in this way. Please help us fight this despicable killing method. We need people out searching for these traps.
