Last night as I was writing my report on the guns that had
been confiscated the scouts were in the bush on patrol and managed to chase
poachers and confiscate yet another muzzle loader. Yet again their brave work
has lead to another very dangerous weapon being taken from the park which will
lead to the lives of many animals being saved.
A gun like this one was meant to kill elephants.
We know how shot guns work and they usually carry relatively
small shot and are used to kill small game however a gun like this with a 20mm
bore carries a much deadlier shot. The muzzle loaders are home made from pieces
of pipe and use a variety of mechanisms to fire the gun. Match heads are ground
and used as gunpowder and a homemade bullet is manufactured from sheet metal.
Time means nothing to the poacher so their approach to killing an elephant is
often not to kill it outright but to shoot through the softer skin into the
lungs or other internal organs. The elephant is badly wounded and followed
until it either dies or cannot move any more, it is then finished off usually
in an inhumane way. Tusks and trunk are removed first and then meat from its
back. Because there are usually only a couple of poachers they can only carry a
small amount of meat so the rest of the elephant is left in the bush to rot.
So now you know some of the truths about poaching. Help me
to help the scouts to drive this out and help save an elephant today.
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