Elephant Baby Snare Poaching - News with happy and sad ends
September 2015
The Rescue Of An Injured Baby
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The team reached little Thomas just in time. His mother and family are waiting nearby. |
On the 31st August the life of a young elephant in Thuma Forest Reserve in central Malawi was saved by Wildlife Action Group (WAG), a non profit organization that manages Thuma and Wildlife Emergency Response Unit (WERU ) a joint venture between Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT) and the Malawi Department of National Parks & Wildlife (DNPW).
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Lynn Clifford ensures 'Little Thomas' airways are open and monitors his breathing while the treatment is given. |
The injured baby, named Thomas, was discovered on August 29th by WAG scouts who patrol the park 24/7/365. They tracked the elephant family for two days and on the afternoon of the 31st managed to dart him and remove the snare. The whole procedure took 45 minutes from beginning to end.
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The snare was buried deep into the leg but |
Derek Macpherson who responded to WAG's request to WERU for help, treated the baby along with WAG scouts, WAG manager Lynn Clifford, donor Thomas Topfer (Chairman of Rettet die Elefanten Afrikas e.V. (REA) who was visiting Thuma at the time and two WAG volunteers.
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Derek administers the anticdote and the team retreat back into the bush. |
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'Little Thomas' up on his feet! |
The wound caused by the snare on the baby elephant's right front leg was very bad but not yet down to the bone. While the baby's elephant family stood by, kept at a safe distance by noise and a few gun shots into the air, the wound was cleaned, and long acting antibiotics were administered, followed by the antidote to the tranquilizer.
Within 90 seconds little Thomas lifted his head and rumbled for his family to come. His mother and other members of his family rushed to him. He stood up slowly, and they walked off together into the forest. WAG scouts have sighted the family since, and Thomas is looking stronger and seems to be healing well.
Thank you to WAG's donors for making all of this possible, and thanks to WERU (and particularly to Derek) for their quick response and excellent help and to REA for covering costs of the rescue. The WAG scouts patrol the forest everyday of the year collecting snares. Snares are indiscriminate and trap, injure mame and kill all types of wildlife. The cost of saving the animals (if we find them in time) is very expensive. We'd like to get more scouts out to help stop this happening in the first place and protect all the animals in the Reserve.
A Terrible Lost
At the weekend in the middle of September, we found a young elephant that seems to have died due to a terrible snare injury.We last saw him in early July with a snare on his leg via a camera trap but have not seen him since until Sunday. The snare was particularly nasty with 4 wires wrapped together. Terrible lost for the reserve and his family.
On that Sunday we also arrested Bertie the snare poacher for the third time! He was pretending to come to cut bamboo (had a ticket) and went straight to the place where we had found snares and were waiting for the one to come check them! He is in police custody now.