News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Deep in the heart of the West African ­national park, there is a glade filled with butterflies of every colour.

It is a tranquil spot surrounded by trees and silence.

Elephants come here to dig for water, supposedly a long way from the problems of man.

Yet a few feet away is the carcass of a bull elephant who had the front of his face cut off with a chainsaw... while he was still alive.

Poachers lay in wait for him at the quiet waterhole, then opened fire. He fled a short distance before collapsing in pain as the band of killers closed in.

They sliced into the old bull’s head to extract every last inch of his precious ivory – worth up to £90,000 per tusk to buyers in China.

After a few weeks in the heat his skin has dried and shrivelled.

Little is left of him but his spine, one ear, and an eyelid closed as if in sleep. Butterflies flutter in and out of his exposed ribs.

Around the body are tracks and signs his corpse has been visited by his family.

Elephants mourn, like humans do, but after grieving they fled into the bush.

“They shoot them with guns or ­poisoned arrows,” says Shelley Waterland of the Born Free Foundation.

“It has been known that poachers even lay a bed of nails in the bush so the elephants injure their feet and cannot walk.

"They follow them until they collapse, and then come in to take the tusks.”

The Sunday Mirror travelled to ­Burkina Faso to work with Born Free, which is overseeing a drive to cut poaching using money donated by readers during our campaign to free Anne, Britain’s last circus elephant, who was abused by her handlers.

As we study the corpse, a gunshot rings out. Poachers are nearby and they want us to leave.

Our terrified – and unarmed – guides urge us to move.

This is the kind of killing which happens every day in Burkina Faso, one of the last refuges for elephants in West Africa.

While the animals are protected and growing in number in the south of the continent, here they are on the brink of extinction.

Sierra Leone officially has no ­elephants. Nigeria has fewer than 10, and Senegal is thought to have just one left.

Burkina and its neighbours are not only poor, with an average wage of less than £1.60 a day, but they are increasingly trading with China, where a ­growing middle class demands status symbols and ivory is highly valued.

It is easy – and lucrative – to smuggle tusks on the thousands of container ships that carry minerals and wood from local seaports to customers in Asia.

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

The traders who benefit from this business are some of the world’s worst criminals. Ivory smuggling funds drug gangs, gun runners and Islamic terrorism.

In 1979 there were 1.3 million elephants in Africa and ivory trading was legal.

By 1989, when it was banned, there were just 600,000 left. Today it’s around 400,000, and it’s thought nearly a tenth of them have been killed in the past year.

At the headquarters of the drastically underfunded wildlife service in the capital Ouagadougou, there is a stockpile of 10 tusks gathered by the authorities.

The smallest came from an animal just five years old, with a brown ring halfway along them showing that only a few inches of tusk were showing outside the infant’s head when it was killed.

Another pair belonged to a female poached in Benin, but after fleeing across the river died in Burkina where the tusks were found by fishermen.

The largest were found next to the corpse of a 60-year-old bull. They are 5ft long and weigh more than 100lb each.

They could command a price of up to £94,000 apiece on the black market... but they were too heavy for the poachers to carry, so the tusks were abandoned next to the corpse.

Both were found a few days later by park rangers; it is rare officials confiscate ivory from poachers, because catching them is almost impossible.

Shelley said: “Elephants here ­naturally have smaller tusks than in other parts of Africa.

"But there is also evidence they are trying to evolve around poaching. Increasingly we are finding elephants with very small or no tusks.

You might think that would solve the problem, but it doesn’t. Elephants need their tusks to strip bark and dig for minerals.

"In times of famine, they will be more likely to starve. An elephant without tusks is not really an elephant at all.”

Even the threat of elephants dying out is not enough to stop the poachers.

Extinction would exponentially increase the value of existing ivory – so what little is left is sought as a commodity that can be banked.

Dr Lambert ­Ouedraogo, general secretary of the Ministry of Environment, said: “Burkina has about 5,000 elephants but there have been 106 killed in the past year alone.

"There is legal and illegal hunting, and while we do give big fines and prison sentences to poachers when we catch them it is very hard to arrest anyone.

“The poachers come from Niger and Benin, or are protected by their communities. We have some anti-poaching patrols but they are not well-equipped, and many are killed. We need help.”

In the first crime-busting project of its kind, the Sunday Mirror has teamed up with Born Free and the government of Burkina Faso to help protect the elephants.

Using more than £23,000 raised by our readers during a campaign to free Anne, who was rescued last year and now lives safely at Longleat ­Safari Park in Wiltshire, we are funding new anti-poaching initiatives.

The cash will pay for wages and running costs for three teams of park rangers.

It will buy GPS equipment and digital cameras to record evidence of poaching. The rangers will get new boots and uniforms and there will be community committees set up to share intelligence and teach locals the importance of preserving the animals.

And – even more importantly – the money will provide medical kits to help rangers shot, bitten or poisoned while on patrol.

Director of Wildlife Pierre Kafondo, receiving the cheque from Born Free and the Sunday Mirror, said: “This will make an enormous difference and from the bottom of our hearts we thank the readers. There is still much to do.”

Tomorrow the Daily Mirror will report on a two-day anti-poaching patrol with Anne’s Army, and reveal how your money is being spent.

Perhaps one day the elephants will be able to return to the quiet glade where the old bull died...

You can still pledge cash

There is still a pressing need for further donations to help properly equip the team of rangers struggling to protect elephants in this park.

They need CB radios to communicate with one another and call for help. They need motorbikes to help them patrol more areas of the bush and do it more effectively, as well as to help them get medical help when needed.

They also need solar power for pumps at waterholes so that elephants can drink even when the rains are late, and help to pay for educational projects with local communities.

To donate to Anne's Army call Born Free on 01403 240170 or go to bornfree.org.uk

For more information on the ivory trade go to bloodyivory.org