The latest census of elephants in Tanzania shows a drop of just over one percent since 2014, when a rapid drop of 60 percent in five years was recorded.
Some areas in northern Tanzania show elephant numbers rising while southern Tanzania is still deep in the red; the report also indicates traces of poaching are still evident.
There are just 42,871 elephants remaining, down from 43,330 in 2014, says the Great Elephant Census.According to the Citizen, Natural Resources and Tourism minister Jumanne Maghembe criticized the report as misleading.
“It is misleading to allude that Tanzania is not seriously waging the war against killers of elephants. We have done a lot and the number of elephants has started increasing not dropping as depicted in the report,” says Maghembe.
The census was compiled by spotters flying in planes crisscrossing nearly 500,000 kilometers across 18 countries — that’s further than flying to the moon.
Across the continent, there has been a 30 percent decline in elephant population between 2007 and 2014.
There are 352,271 African elephants left.