Elephants gain strong supportin strong support

MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK, Tanzania — The elephant keeled over in the tall grass in Tanzania, where some of the world’s worst poaching has occurred.

It wasn’t killers who targeted her but conservation officials who shot her with a dart of drugs. Soon she was snoring. They slid on a 26-pound GPS tracking collar and injected an antidote, bringing her back to her feet.

The operation was part of a yearlong effort to track 60 elephants in and around Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve, widely acknowledged as “ground zero” in the poaching that has decimated Africa’s elephants.

The Associated Press went there to witness how the battle to save them is gaining momentum, with killings declining and some populations growing again. Legal ivory markets are shrinking worldwide and law enforcement has broken up some trafficking syndicates, experts said.

But it’s too early to declare a turnaround. Poachers are moving to new areas and traffickers are adapting, aided by corruption. The rate of annual elephant losses still exceeds the birth rate. And the encroachment of human settlements reduces the animals’ range.

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