Nearly 90 Elephants Found Dead Near Botswana Sanctuary, Killed By Poachers

Elephants in the Chobe National Park in Botswana. Eighty-seven elephant carcasses were found in the country, months after it disarmed its anti-poaching unit.

Charmaine Noronha/AP

The carcasses of 87 elephants have been discovered near a Botswana protected sanctuary, killed and stripped for their tusks.

The elephants were discovered by Elephants Without Borders, a conservation nonprofit. The organization said they "discovered the alarming rate while flying the Botswana government aerial [elephant] census."

"I'm shocked, I'm completely astounded," Mike Chase of Elephants Without Borders told the BBC. "The scale of elephant poaching is by far the largest I've seen or read about anywhere in Africa to date." Story by Emily Sullivan / www.npr.org.