 This region has a four decade history of illegal killing of this species; in fact, the Chad population was over 300,000 animals as recently as 1970 and has been reduced to approximately 10,000 as of 2006.The African elephant nominally has Chadian governmental protection, but the implementation practices of the government (backed with certain EU help) have been insufficient to stem the slaughter by poachers.The African Bush Elephant ("Loxodonta africana") species occurs in several countries of Eastern and Central Africa.