BIG PROBLEM

Don't Save the Elephants?

Giant pachyderms are a menace to African farmers.

Efforts to protect Central African elephants from poachers are turning humans into an endangered species instead, the Los Angeles Times' Robyn Dixon reports. While the likable pachyderms are protected for their value in attracting tourism, local farmers in Zambia say the creatures are a constant danger, destroying crops and even killing locals by stamping their huts without warning. Villager Muyenga Katiba, 44, described one such attack in which an elephant charged at a young man and then ran over an elderly woman insider her hut, killing them both. "The boy didn't even scream," Katiba told the LA Times. "He just died quietly." Locals say they see little compensation in tourist revenue for their suffering. "When I see one of those animals, I just know it wants to kill me," said one retired railway worker who lost a house to an elephant attack.