DR Congo to create elephant safe-zone after elephant walks near church

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Elephants, photo by David Heiling on Unsplash

Conservationists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said Tuesday they would create a safe corridor for elephants in a district where an elephant was seen near a church on Easter Sunday.

District administrator Ferdinand Tshikala Etshindo told news agency AFP that the elephant had been spotted near Lukula in the west of the African country.

On Easter Day (April 17), the elephant surprised people outside the church, causing panic, Etshindo said.

Authorities in the capital Kinshasa sent Arthur Kalonji, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) director, to the area where the elephant was seen near people of the church.

Kalonji told reporters on Tuesday he wanted to turn “this elephant intrusion into a source of revenue by creating ecological corridors” for the
animals to roam and graze.

He added that visitors would have to pay a fee to see the elephants in the conservation zone.


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