ScienceDaily:
Feb. 6, 2013 — The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced February 6 that a national park, once home to Africa’s largest forest elephant population, has lost a staggering 11,100 individuals due to poaching for the ivory trade.
The shocking figures come from Gabon’s Minkebe Park, where recent surveys of areas within the park revealed that two thirds of its elephants have vanished since 2004. The majority of these losses have probably taken place in the last five years.
Gabon contains over half of Africa’s forest elephants, with a population estimated at over 40,000.