KAMPALA, Uganda: Elephant herds, cut to a fraction of their former size by poachers and trigger-happy Ugandan soldiers, will be wiped out soon if current losses continue, according to a Ugandan conservation expert.
Erie Edroma, director of the Uganda Institute of Ecology, said Saturday that only 1,500 to 2,000 remain of the 20,000 elephants that roamed Uganda in the 1960s.
Most of the losses occurred in the 1970s when dictator Idi Amin’s soldiers killed the animals indiscriminately. Losses of elephants and other animals continued: on a large scale in some areas after Amin was overthrown in 1979.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 10, 1989
