Villagers sometimes taunt returned children with the same expression used for Konys men: LRA Tongo Tongo. LRA Cut Cuta reference, Sugule explains, to the militants vicious use ofmachetes. Six years later, on October 25, 2014, Onen tells me, his poaching mission to Garamba was scheduled to deliver its ivory to Kony in Sudan. "It was the 24th of March," she says. Those looking at the x-ray screen, which shows the trackers inside, think Im smuggling a bomb. At that point she'd already dedicated more than a decade of her life to studying forest elephants, which for centuries had remained hidden within the dense canopy of the rain forest. It needs to be durable and small enough to fit inside the cavities George Dante would make in the blocks of resin and lead that formed the tusks. I wonder if Konys men are out there now. In three weeks Konys brutes killed more than 800 people and kidnapped more than 160 children. A few days later the tusks proceed to Songo, the Sudanese market town where Onen said Konys men trade ivory. The team calculated that 18.5 percent of female elephants did not have tusks before the war began. In 2009 Bashir became the worlds first sitting head of state indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Without the stress of poaching, the elephants started breeding again, and more than 40 calves have been born. According to CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon, Sudan does not appear on these lists because CITES sets priorities based mainly on ivory seizures, and there have been few ivory seizures linked to Sudan in recent years. This behavior is associated with mourning, field researchers say. We meet over Skype. Normally both male and female African elephants have tusks, which are really a pair of massive teeth. Andrea Turkalo sketched the ears and other details of the elephants she studied to help identify them. Their lack of tusks was thought to be a consequence of another human creationthe Mozambican civil war, which lasted from 1977 to 1992 and was partly paid for by the killing of elephants for . After Lucienne Lanziwas husband died in an LRA attack on Garamba, she got a modest stipend. In 2012 as many as a hundred Sudanese and Chadian poachers on horseback rode across central Africa into Cameroons Bouba Ndjidah National Park. Like much of the world, George Dante knows that the African elephant is under siege. The NPR team had spent hours on that platform with Andrea, seeing these huge animals in a way few people in the world have a chance to do, and with someone who could "translate" what they were doing. Rogue militias and army soldiers from the DRC, Sudan, and South Sudan are slaughtering elephants in the park. Diya is for accidents, he says. They included South Sudanese armed forces (SPLA) and Sudanese military, as well as defectors from those militaries and an assortment of Sudan-based rebels. In 2013, Khamis Kagasheki, then Tanzanias minister of natural resources and tourism, declared that the illegal ivory trade involves rich people and politicians who have formed a very sophisticated network, and he accused four members of Tanzanias Parliament of being involved init. She's bundled in a heavy coat rarely needed during her years in the African bush. In June three more Garamba-based officers were killed. ", Andrea Turkalo sketched the ears and other details of the elephants she studied to help identify them. It was just impossible to stay. Researchers looked at why female elephants in Gorongosa national park in Mozambique were frequently born without tusks, and found that the animals were in effect genetically engineered by mass . East Africa is now ground zero for much of the poaching. But a new study suggests there is a serious reason for why lots of tuskless elephants can now be found in the country of Mozambique in Africa - poaching. After Zakoumas rangers destroyed their camp and confiscated their equipment, the poachers were unable to return to Sudan, so three weeks later they went back to Heban hill and attacked the Hippotrague unit. When he returns hours later, he has three chicken dinners and several bottles of beer, paid for by the police chief. Other roads also lead to Sudan. He wasnt contrite. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. On some days more then 100 elephants at at a time visit the clearing. In a public square in Am Timan, shortly before his trial, he shouted, I know who betrayed me! During those years Sudanese poachers arrived in groups of more than a dozen armed men, camping inside the park for months at a time, killing, in one instance, 64 elephants in a single hunt. It consists of a battery capable of lasting more than a year, a GPS receiver, an Iridium satellite transceiver, and a temperature sensor. Mozambique's elephants declined from an estimated 20,000 to 10,300 during the same period. This paper is going to lead to a lot of speculation and modeling.. The dogs are Belgian Malinois shepherds, famed for their use in military operations, especially in tough conditions like the dense central African bush. Its easier to live with things, she says. I mean, I've been through a lot of poaching.". Suddenly they move steadily north, about 12 miles a day along the border with South Sudan, avoiding all roads. "And they were yelling at us," she says. " Such genes ought to disappear, Roca says, because females that lack them would have more offspring. He was 22 years old the night in 1998 that Konys soldiers raided his village in Gulu, Uganda, and pulled him from his bed. After more than an hour of animated debate, they phone the airports wildlife expert. AUDIO: Justin O'Neill. Katy Payne/The Elephant Listening Project Its not clear why a mutated version of AMELXwhich is located on the x chromosomewould be fatal to males, but researchers suspect one or more nearby genes come along for the ride. Can fake tusks with hidden GPS trackers thwartthem? His control is absolute.. Despite Sudans role as a safe haven for groups known to traffic ivory, such as the LRA, janjaweed, and other poaching gangs, the country has drawn limited official attention as a poaching state. Theyre looting communities, enslaving people, and killing park rangers who get in their way. Professor Robert Pringle of Princeton University said: "Tusklessness might be advantageous during a war, but that comes at a cost.". Get more great content like this delivered right to you! So support charities who put a stop to that. Shane Campbell-Staton, an evolutionary biologist now at Princeton University, was curious about the elephants of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, where tuskless elephantswhich are all femaleare unusually common. Help News from Science publish trustworthy, high-impact stories about research and the people who shape it. Accuracy and availability may vary. In the morning, after officials from Tanzanias Wildlife Division and the U.S. Embassy arrive, Im released. Female elephants do use their tusks, but female elephants in Mozambique are doing just fine without them, according to Long. COPY EDITOR: Cindy Leitner, Hear Brent Stirton tell their stories in an audioslideshow, Hear Bryan Christy discuss the investigation on. In March 2015 Boko Harams leader, Abubakar Shekau, pledged allegiance to ISIS, and his group was renamed Islamic States West Africa Province, giving that Middle East terrorist group a foothold in WestAfrica. It was used to make combs, pool balls, knick-knacks, and even piano keys. Learn more about the Explorer series. Arent you interested in peace talks?. "The people on the shore, they started discharging their automatic weapons in the air," she remembers. In March 2006 he fled for the DRC and set up camp in Garamba National Park, then home to some 4,000 elephants. It is assumed that the girls were raped, so its difficult for them to find husbands. Three more are classified as of importance to watch: Angola, Cambodia, and Laos. Those elephants were featured in an NPR program, Radio Expeditions, in 2002, when former NPR host and correspondent Alex Chadwick and sound engineer Bill McQuay went to central Africa to record them. Female elephants in Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique evolved to be tuskless in response to intense hunting. Once the war and poaching ended,elephants with tusks were more likely to survive because they could use their tusks to find . We would follow them using Google Earth. EVERY SINGLE animal on this planet is special and this doesn't happen to monkeys or crocodiles or birds does it? 5. Turkalo clearly would rather be back in Africa than in a coffee house in Rhode Island. When he shows up, he picks up a tusk and runs his finger over the butt end. Ivory shops in Khartoum advertise in English and Chinese as well as Arabic. ", Now, a year later, Andrea is stoic about the loss. To test ivory, dealers will scratch a tusk with a knife or hold a lighter under it; ivory is a tooth and wont melt. We are in charge of the futures of our animals and earth and making a world for future generations to thrive in. The soldiers killed the elephants. It also raises many questions. Its rare that you get such a dramatic example, says co-author Robert Pringle, an ecologist at Princeton. To look for genes that might be involved, the team took blood from 18 female elephants in the park and sequenced their genomes. Halfway through our patrol, we come upon a clearing of burned grass beside the Kassi River, the site of a recent battle between Garamba rangers and SPLA poachers, in which, rangers tell me, they killed two poachers. Its only the ivory that will make the LRA strong, he recalls Konysaying. Otti liked elephants, Onen recalled, and forbade their killing. In Zimbabwe, a recent survey shows massive losses in some parks. So why elephants? Then they head south six miles, back into Kafia Kingi. The Central African Republic was peaceful back then. "Not only do they recognize each other's calls, but the calls go far," she told NPR correspondent Alex Chadwick, who spent days with her back then, observing the elephants with Bill McQuay. Soldiers killed elephants to acquire ivory which was later sold to finance arms and ammunition. The teams cook, also wounded, struggled 11 miles to get help. Campbell-Staton points out that other species in Gorongosa rely on elephants having tusks to dig up holes for water and strip bark from trees. From Garamba, Kony sent an exploratory team to Darfur to look into forging a new relationship with the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), who had supported him against Uganda, hoping to exchange ivory for rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. HOW MANY TIMES ?? The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Ugandan soldiers with the African Unions Regional Task Force hunt for LRA leader Joseph Kony in the Central African Republic (CAR), pulling themselves along ropes to cross rivers. CORNISH: Campbell-Staton had heard all of this before. It hadnt explodedyet. I know that ivory tusks make millions of pounds but is it really worth it? for their meat. We plunge eight hours through elephant grass so tall and thick its possible to get lost just 20 feet from the man in front of youdown grass ravines, up hills exposed to the enemy, across a murky, waist-deep pond. But last year at the bai, she says, she feared for her life. To use comments you will need to have JavaScript enabled. This comment was removed because it broke the rules. I find a human skull fragment, and I nearly pick up a live hand grenade near where the SPLA had camped, mistaking it for a baby tortoise. Researchers at the bai learned to identify individual elephants by the shape and characteristics of their ears. Andrea Turkalo/The Elephant Listening Project, Andrea Turkalo /The Elephant Listening Project. The culprits are believed to have been South Sudanese, according to African Parks. Tongo Tongo shot two elephants one day, she says. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Geographic certifying that theyre artificial. Elephant ivory is a key source of funding for armed groups in central Africa . 2023 American Association for the Advancement of Science. In ten years hes never made a mistake, he says: The tusks are real. Onen had been part of an LRA poaching operation in Garamba consisting of 41 fighters, including Konys son Salim. 'Everybody out, everybody out.' Mozambiques civil war from 1977 to 1992 had a grim outcome for elephants: During that time, some 90% were killed for the ivory in their tusks, which were sold to finance the war. Fifty percent will be tuskless. A global march demanding action to stop elephant and rhino poaching will be held . Andrea Turkalo /The Elephant Listening Project. "We gave them a little money and said the Seleka were coming," says Turkalo. Track the GPS unit in an interactive map. I know which house theyre in: Using Google Earth, I see its light-blue roof on my screen. Jensen, who was executive producer of the series, and Alex Chadwick, chief correspondent, insisted on the highest quality sound recording to complement its reporting. When the American Museum of Natural History wanted to update the hall of North American mammals, taxidermist George Dante got the call. Weve heard he went to Seleka, Idriss Adoums son Issa tells me, referring to the violent rebel coalition that overthrew the CAR government on March 24, 2013. These soldiers are tasked with helping rangers fight poachers and armed groups like theLRA. The result: Some 30,000 African elephants are slaughtered every year, more than 100,000 between 2010 and 2012, and the pace of killing is not slowing. It was several weeks after that, that she heard that poachers taking advantage of the chaos in the country had invaded the bai. That's just something to think about and consider really because it's absolutely RIDICULOUS that any animal should have to go through that. Copyright 2021 NPR. One of them knew one of the women in the boat. Konys men jump back and forth across borders, hiding in countries where governance is weak. EVERY SINGLE animal on this planet is special and this doesn't happen to monkeys or crocodiles or birds does it? Kiev's troops have big Nazi problem - ex-US soldier who escaped Ukraine; DESTRUCTION OF OUR CULTURE HAS SUCCEEDED; Most Ukrainian Soldiers On Bakhmut Front-Line Killed 'Within 4 Hours' URGENT: mRNAs jabs may have caused tens of millions of serious new health problems worldwide, a huge peer-reviewed study shows The last time an elephant was recorded killed by a poacher in Mozambique's Niassa Reserve was May 17, 2018, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York -based nonprofit that helps the Mozambican government manage the national reserve. His wife, abducted later, was killed. The Rhodesian armed forces lacked the manpower to effectively protect its 1,300-kilometre (800 mi) border with Mozambique against entering ZANLA insurgents. Read about our approach to external linking. Margaret Acino was 23, pregnant, working in the fields near Gulu, Uganda, when an LRA commander called for a razor and ordered his boy soldiers to slice off her lips, ears, and nose. When humans hunt, they can cause their quarry to evolve by targeting individuals with particular traits, like big fish or sheep with hefty horns. When theyre abducted, theyre very young, and theyre forced to do horrible things. By 1913, the African elephant population had dropped to an estimated 10 million. They set up camp and in a four-month rampage killed up to 650 elephants. So I said to myself, 'I better go into a very passive mode.' I spend a night in police custody, where Im given a desk to sleep on. MCCAMMON: Around 90% of the elephants there were killed, but many female elephants without tusks survived and thrived. Radio Expeditions used interviews, narration, and on-location recording to bring listeners to exotic places around the world. The cook, Djimet Said (opposite), was shot but survived, walking 11 miles to the nearest village for help. Andrea says all she was able to rescue were electronic copies of her research data. PELLETIER: The reason why that's important is because if you stop the killing right now, you know, the time it would take for the population to, you know, restore that traits would be much longer now that there's been a change in the genes than if it wasn't. One moves north toward Heban, the other west toward centralChad. When Ele, a female elephant, died, other elephants approached one-by-one and touched their trunks to the body. A white elephant is a valuable item that has a rate that perhaps surpasses its usefulness. Was it genetically inherited at all? - during that 15-year period had all these cascading consequences, all the way up from, you know, a single gene to an entire ecosystem health. They used Historical records to collect height (estimated to the shoulder), tusk length, and tusk circumference from approximately 600 elephants that were culled in Tsavo East National Park (Kenya) and Mkomazi National Park (Tanzania) between 1966 and 1968. That members of the Sudanese military trade arms for ivory with the LRA raises questions about the highest levels of Sudans government. Now it was rare to see 250 in aherd. Such a biased sex ratio would be expected with a recessive gene that kills males when they inherit it. National Geographic television producer J.J.Kelley takes the floor in the waiting area. She had gone to Africa to do aid work, but was drawn to the intricate lives of these elephants. And I was like, ooh, what's this? When ivory poachers target elephants, the hunters can affect more than just animal numbers. At least 26 elephants were massacred at the Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic in the spring of 2013. To follow my artificial tusks from the jungle to their final destination, I need a tracking device capable of transmitting exact locations without dead zones. And someoneits unclear whois believed to be killing elephants from helicopters, as evidenced by bullet holes in the tops of skulls and the removal of tusks by what can only be chain saws. He points a finger at me, and yells, You are a liar, bwana! (Bwana is Swahili for sir.). After visiting Garamba, I arrange with a confidential source to put my tusks into the black market near Mboki, a small village in CAR midway between Garamba and Sudan that has been the target of attacks by Konys army and where some people who have escaped from Kony have found safety. Do we really need to sell ivory tusks in the world just to make money? "You know, a lot of the NGOs, we just cut and run," she tells us matter-of-factly. for their tusks. Those looking at the tusks think Im an ivory trafficker. During the civil war in Mozambique,soldiers killed elephants with tusks in order to sell the ivory, so fewer elephants with tusks survived. To identify the elephants, Turkalo learned to draw the animals' ears each ear's shape and markings are unique to each individual. In May 2013 poachers with the insurgent group Seleka massacred 26 elephants at Dzanga Bai, amineral-rich watering hole in CAR. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. But ammunition is in perilously short supplynot even enough for basic trainingand the rangers largest weapon, a belt-fed machine gun, tends to jam every third round or so. Then youre just the man for me.. During the civil war in Mozambique, soldiers killed elephants with tusks in order to sell the ivory, so fewer elephants with tusks survived. 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