The 2006 Zakouma elephant slaughter refers to a series of poaching massacres of African elephants in the vicinity of Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad. These killings were documented in aerial surveys conducted from May through August 2006 and total at least 100 animals.[1]
This region has a four-decade long history of illegal killing of elephants. Chad's elephant population was reduced to around 20,000 in the mid-1980s and was roughly 3,000 as of 2010, according to Stephanie Vergniault, head of SOS Elephants in Chad.[2] The elephant nominally has Chadian governmental protection, but the implementation practices of the government (backed with assistance from the European Union) was largely insufficient to stem the slaughter by poachers.[1] The African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) species occurs in several countries of Eastern and Central Africa. The most recent aerial surveys in Chad were conducted from August 3–11, 2006, overseen by J. Michael Fay, a Wildlife Conservation Society conservationist and National Geographic explorer-in-residence. They found five separate massacre sites.[1]