On Monday, environmentalists filed a petition with Tanzania asking the government to stop trophy hunting for elephants in a large wildlife reserve that stretches along its shared border with Kenya.
Amboseli National Park in Kenya and Enduimet Wildlife Management Area in Tanzania are two of the wildlife protection ranges where about 2,000 elephants, including “super-tuskers,” as they are nicknamed due to their huge tusks, graze.
Tanzania permits the trophy shooting of elephants for their valuable tusks, although trophy hunting is forbidden in Kenya. As a result, there have been cases of hunters killing elephants in Kenya from across the border.
“The loss of these elephants is not just a blow to elephant populations but to our collective efforts in conservation,” Cynthia Moss, founder of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, said.
500,000 people signed the petition, which was supported by more than 50 African NGOs dedicated to wildlife protection.
According to conservationists, there are only 10 super-tuskers—each weighing around 45 kg—remaining in the Amboseli habitat, which is home to the greatest concentration of these species.
“Hunting could cause the super-tuskers to disappear within the next three years,” according to the petition.
Following the killing of Kenyan elephants by hunters on Tanzanian territory, Tanzania and its neighbours in East Africa decided in 1995 that it would no longer provide hunting permits on its portion of the reserve. However, according to the petition, Tanzania resumed providing visas in 2022.
