Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Suspected poacher trampled to death by elephant he was trying to shoot

A suspected poacher has reportedly been trampled to death by an elephant as he tried to shoot the beast in Zimbabwe. The bloodied remains of Solomon Manjoro were found by rangers after what was thought to be a botched poaching trip at the protected Charara safari area inside a national park.

The local man was charged by the elephant after he entered the game reserve for an illegal hunting trip with a friend. The dead man's alleged accomplice Noluck Tafuruka, 29, was later arrested inside the park and charged with illegal possession of a firearm. Zimbabwe's Sunday Mail reported: "The poacher was recently trampled to death by an elephant after he failed to gun down the jumbo during a hunting expedition."



It is believed Manjoro and Tafuruka encountered the elephant after entering the huge game reserve at the end of April. Police believe the pair, who were allegedly carrying unlicensed weapons, faced up to the beast and attempted to shoot it. However Manjoro was killed when the animal failed to fall and instead charged towards him.

Tafuruka was later arrested by local police inside the Charara reserve, which lies near Zimbabwe's Lake Kariba in the north west of the country. A third man, Godfrey Shonge, 52, from capital Harare, has also been arrested over the incident. The pair appeared last week in court to face charges of illegal possession of firearms and of contravention of local wildlife laws. The magistrate was told Manjoro and Tafuruka had entered the National Park between April 19 and 26 with the sole intention of poaching.

6 comments:

Triumphant said...

^5 to the elephant.

Candy said...

Too bad...so sad...NOT.

BoS said...

A HAW HAW HAW!

Anonymous said...

I cannot tell you how much this makes me happy, if in fact true. All poachers should be shot on sight, period. --A.

Barbwire said...

I won't say a word about the survivor being named "Noluck".

Insolitus said...

I can't take such a black-and-white view on these poachers as other people here seem to take. Sure, it's nice the elephant survived, but a man got killed. And maybe these men were desperate to get money to feed their families or something like that. Not all poachers are animal hating monsters who kill for the pleasure of it. I'm sure there are poachers who hate what they are forced to do, who would rather do anything else if it was possible. And, who among us wouldn't kill a hundred elephants to save the life of their own child, their spouse, brother or mother, for example?

Just another point of view.