Magna

Magna was born in 1965. As you can see from the photo, his tusks are barely more than broken stumps. So you would think that he would be safe from poachers. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

In 2010, just outside Amboseli National Park, near the Tanzanian border, he was killed by poachers. His meagre tusks hacked out of his skull as bounty. If Magna was killed for tusks this size, then really, no elephant is safe any more. When ivory is selling for as much as $5000 a kilo in the Far East, even tusks such as Magna’s made him a target for the poachers. If this rate of killing were to continue, there won’t be much left within just a couple of years.

Photo credit and text: Big Life Foundation