NOT a single elephant is left in the Kahuzi-Biega national park of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while the gorilla population has been cut down to 130 from 8_000 just five years ago, a report said on Friday. An environmental magazine, The Gorilla, said that in 1996, some 3_600 elephants had been counted in the park, in South Kivu province, but that a recent recount by the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) had failed to turn up a single pachyderm. The Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature blamed the decimation of the wildlife on the “presence of armed groups on all fronts.” – AFP