ZIMBABWE: File photo shows a game ranger walks by a rotting elephant carcass, in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. — AP

HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwean officials say poachers killed five elephants by poisoning them with cyanide. Rangers discovered the carcasses of the elephants with their tusks removed in a western forest last week, Violet Makoto, spokeswoman for Zimbabwe’s forestry commission, said yesterday. No arrests have been made, she said.

Makoto said the poison was laced on salt licks, a method now regularly used by poachers to kill elephants in Zimbabwe. She says poachers killed four other elephants in the same area in February. The wildlife-rich southern African country has battled cyanide poisoning of wildlife by poachers for the past three years. Poachers killed 62 elephants by that method in October. — AP