Fourteen rare elephants in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park have been killed since mid-April, a conservation group says.
A 2006 survey showed there were only 350 elephants in the war-ravaged park, a Unesco World Heritage Site.
"We've been taken by surprise by the intensity of the killings," Emmanuel de Merode of WildlifeDirect told the BBC.
He said that he feared it may be linked to South Africa's decision to lift a 13-year moratorium on elephant culling.
Dangerous
"All 14 were killed by automatic rifle; they were cut up for their meat and with the exception of the final one, their ivory was taken away," Mr Merode told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
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