Stupid Humans

Reuters/CNN 'reports' below.

Failed to mention the role of urban sprawl.

Or, if the "tinsmiths" will be prosecuted.

Army sent to stop killer elephants in Malawi

Friday, June 20, 2003 Posted: 11:05 AM EDT (1505 GMT)

Elephants must share space with rapidly growing human populations in rural Africa. 24malawi030620ele

BLANTYRE, Malawi (Reuters) -- Malawi's army has been sent to round up a herd of rampaging elephants that have killed at least three people since they broke out of a game reserve earlier this week, police said.

Their mission: to drive an estimated 150 of the beasts back into the Kasungu National Park on the Zambian border before they do more damage. One group of 50 pachyderms has already returned.

"School pupils are being escorted by armed game rangers to and from school every day," Kasungu District Commissioner Christopher Makileni told Reuters by telephone on Thursday.

Makileni said damage to the park's electric fence by thieving local tinsmiths had enabled the elephants to break free in the central tobacco-growing region.

He said the elephants had also injured several people, two of them seriously. Crops and homes have also been damaged.

The world's largest land mammal lives in uneasy co-existence with rapidly growing human populations in rural Africa, where only a handful of countries still have free-roaming herds that are not confined to fenced-off game parks.

At least 10 people were killed earlier this year after a pride of lions broke free from the same Malawi game park.

Reuters Does Sumatran Elephant Decline

Depletion | Africa | Animals | June 2003