Elephants are officially globally classified as a vulnerable species, while rhinos are listed as endangered. A number of factors have gone into their population declines, including natural selection and the creatures straying into human villages. However, the biggest factor by far in their population decrease is poaching.

Back in 2016, Tanzania introduced an anti-poaching task force, and they just released the data they have gathered since then. Thankfully, the data shows that this anti-poaching task force task force has helped populations of both elephants and rhinos to boom in Tanzania.

“As a result of the work of a special task force launched in 2016 to fight wildlife poaching, elephant populations have increased from 43,330 in 2014 to over 60,000 presently,” the Tanzanian government said in a statement.

When it comes to rhinos, the data out of Tanzania is even more impressive. There were officially only 15 rhinos in Tanzania in 2015, but now, there are 167!

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Unfortunately, elephants are poached for their tusks, which are then sold on the black market and used to make jewelry and ornaments. Meanwhile, poachers target rhinos for their horns, which many believe have medicinal properties, despite being made of keratin, like human fingernails.

The anti-poaching task force isn’t the only thing that has caused poaching to decrease in Tanzania, as the poachers themselves are also being given much harsher sentences. Officials in Tanzania are now hoping that other countries will follow suit and enact similar anti-poaching task forces.

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