|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Akpan David, Calabar
There are less than 400 elephants remaining all over Nigeria, animal conservationists have cried.
This discovery was made at a 2-day workshop held in Abuja.
It was anchored by Wildlife Conservation Society based in Calabar, and supported by Federal Ministry of Environment, with support for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI).
Participants drawn from National Park Service, federal department of forestry, state governments and animal rights NGOs identified sites where elephants could still be found in Nigeria, their status and likely threats.
The workshop produced a list of priority conservation actions for each site needed to safeguard the long-term future of elephants in the country.
Participants noted that hundreds of thousands of elephants once roamed across the country, but due to human activities, “including poaching for their ivory and habitat loss, it is estimated that fewer than 400 remain today. Elephants are on the very edge of extinction in Nigeria.”
According to them, the country has two different species of elephant: forest elephants in the south and savanna elephants in the north.
The workshop drafted a National Elephant Action Plan (NEAP) to save Nigeria’s remaining elephants.
Ten elephant sites were identified including three national parks and a list of priority actions needed to save elephants at each site was produced.
Five small isolated sites have fewer than 50 elephants each and so could be wiped out in less than ten years unless urgent action is taken.
Despite the threats it is not too late to save elephants from extinction in Nigeria, but significant resources and improved political support will be required.
