Director of Technical Programmes at the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), Onoja Joseph has explained what may have been the circumstances surrounding the death of a stray elephant calf in Okomu, Edo State recently.
Onoja took to Twitter on Wednesday after the death of the elephant was announced. He ruled out the involvement of poachers after preliminary investigation, promising in depth probe in future.
Onoja twitted: “It is necessary to state that when the news of this unfortunate situation came out, there were different accounts. We are working closely with the Park Management and conducting a thorough investigation to unravel what happened that the calf was separated from the mother/herd/ resulting to the injury it sustained.
“The calf was rescued by some farmers who handed it to some staff of OOPC working close by and was finally handed to the park management. The management had assured us that while thorough investigation is still on going, the compartments where the herds are have been identified and monitoring activities have been intensified.
“It is likely the elephant mother was killed by poachers.” – Preliminary investigations shows that this is not the case. That it was swept by strong current when the herd was crossing the River close to Iron Bridge. When it got out of the river, it was being persecuted and the events that happened thereafter until the calf was with taken into the possession of the Park Management.
“This is very necessary so that decisive measures will be taken to forestall and discourage any future incidents.”
Concerned Nigerians had earlier taken to social media to call for thorough investigation into the matter following the announcement of the calf’s death on Tuesday by the African Nature Investors (ANI).
When the news broke earlier, the management of Okomu Oil Plc had swiftly denied reports of any involvement in killing the baby elephant which had strayed into its plantation.
The denial was issued through the company’s Head of Human Resources, Mr. Ikpomwosa Osunbor according to The Nation newspaper.
The management of the company had claimed that some staff ran for safety when they sighted the baby elephant, fearing its mother would soon attack.
Osunbor had reportedly said the baby elephant was captured and returned to the wild at the Okomu National Park.
Okomu Park is one of the last places where forest elephants still thrive in Nigeria.
