HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Rangers in Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park have discovered the carcasses of 26 elephants at two locations, dead of cyanide poisoning along with 14 other elephants who were found last week, officials said Wednesday. 
 
 Patrolling rangers discovered the carcasses Tuesday, according to Bhejani Trust and the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Bhejani Trust undertakes joint animal monitoring and welfare work with the parks agency 
 
 Parks spokeswoman Caroline Washaya Moyo said 14 tusks were recovered from these elephants and others were not recovered. She said rangers found 16 of the elephants in an area known as Lupande and 10 others in Chakabvi. 
 
 Washaya-Moyo said no arrests have been made and investigations are in progress. Rangers recovered one kilo (2.2 pounds) of cyanide and are increasing patrols in the park, she said. Cyanide is widely used in Zimbabwe's mining industry and is easy to obtain. 
 
 "The poachers were probably disturbed by rangers on patrol, which is why some of the tusks were recovered. Cyanide poisoning is becoming a huge problem here and we are struggling to contain it," Trevor Lane, founder of Bhejani Trust and a leading wildlife conservationist told The Associated Press. 
 
 Last week, the parks agency reported that 14 elephants were poisoned by cyanide in in three separate incidents. In 2013, as many as 300 elephants died in Hwange park after poachers laced salt pans with cyanide. 
 
 On Monday, environment, Water and Climate Minister Oppah Muchinguri blamed a ban on Zimbabwean elephant sport hunting by the United States for increased poaching. 
 
 "All this poaching is because of American policies, they are banning sport hunting. An elephant would cost $120,000 in sport hunting but a tourist pays only $10 to view the same elephant," she said, adding money from sport hunting is crucial in conservation efforts. ||||| It is an image that will haunt conservationists: one of Africa’s most majestic creatures lying dead on the ground as a white Western hunter poses proudly by its side. 
 
 Barely three months after the shooting of Cecil the lion caused global outrage , a German hunter has risked the wrath of animal lovers once more by shooting dead one of the largest elephants ever seen in Zimbabwe. 
 
 Mystery surrounded the identity of the elephant, which was estimated to have been between 40 and 60 years old, but had never been seen before in Zimbabwe’s southern Gonarezhou National Park. 
 
 But its tusks, which touch the ground in a photograph taken moments after its shooting, confirmed its exceptional nature, weighing an estimated 120lb each. 
 
 It was shot on October 8 in a private hunting concession bordering Gonarezhou by a hunter who paid $60,000 (£39,000) for a permit to land a large bull elephant and was accompanied by a local, experienced professional hunter celebrated by the hunting community for finding his clients large elephants. 
 
 The German national, who the hunt’s organisers have refused to name, had travelled to Zimbabwe to conduct a 21-day game hunt including species among the Big Five of elephants, leopards, lions, buffalo and rhinoceros. 
 
 “Individual elephants such as these should be accorded their true value as a National Heritage and should be off limits to hunting" Anthony Kaschula, Safari firm owner 
 
 The kill was celebrated in hunting forums around the world, where it was suggested he might have been the biggest elephant killed in Africa for almost 30 years. 
 
 Conservationists and photographic safari operators in the area expressed their outrage on Thursday night, saying the animal was one of a kind and should have been preserved for all to see. 
 
 Anthony Kaschula, who operates a photographic safari firm in Gonarezhou, posted pictures of the hunt on Facebook, said the elephant had never been seen in the area before but would have been celebrated by visitors and locals alike. 
 
 “We have no control over poaching but we do have control over hunting policy that should acknowledge that animals such as this one are of far more value alive (to both hunters and non-hunters) than dead,” he wrote. 
 
 “Individual elephants such as these should be accorded their true value as a National Heritage and should be off limits to hunting. In this case, we have collectively failed to ensure that legislation is not in place to help safeguard such magnificent animals.” 
 
 Unlike Cecil, the black-maned lion beloved by tourists who was shot by American dentist Walter Palmer in Hwange National Park using a bow and arrow in July, the animal’s origin was not immediately known. 
 
 It was speculated that he might have come up from South Africa, since there is no border between the Kruger National Park and Gonarezhou, which form part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park created by former South African president Nelson Mandela. 
 
 Some suggested that the elephant might be a massive bull called Nkombo, who was a satellite collared elephant from the Kruger who lost his collar in 2014. Nkombo was however spotted in the Kruger on October 3, making it unlikely that he would have completed a journey of several hundred miles in five days. 
 
 William Mabasa, of South Africa’s National Parks, said Kruger’s elephant experts were looking into the case. “If this elephant came up from the Kruger, he would have had to go through all the communities on the edge of Gonarezhou and someone would have seen him. It’s not possible.” 
 
 Louis Muller, chairman of the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters & Guides Association, said the hunter had only realised how large the “tusker” was once he had been shot. 
 
 "He told me when he and his client were stalking this elephant he saw the tusks were big but did not realise just how big until afterwards and he saw them close. He is going back to see if he can find the lower jaw and bring it back so we can accurately age this elephant,” he told The Telegraph. 
 
 "We checked everywhere and this elephant has never been seen before, not in Zimbabwe nor Kruger. We would have known it because its tusks are huge. There have been five or six giant tuskers shot in the last year or so, and we knew all of them, but none as big as this one.” 
 
 He said his organisation had suggested that unique elephants should be collared to protect them from hunting. “We have suggested before to all concerned parties that each elephant area should collar a few with biggest tusks, so that we do not shoot them,” he said. "Nobody responded to our suggestion last year. We believe this might now be taken seriously.” 
 
 The man who helped arrange the hunt, who did not want to be named, defended his client. “This was a legal hunt and the client did nothing wrong,” he said. “We hunters have thick skins and we know what the greenies will say. This elephant was probably 60 years old and had spread its seed many many times over.” 
 
 He said his organisation paid as much as 70 per cent of its hunting fees back to the local community and observed quotas for animals. “This is good for Zimbabwe and good for local people,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for hunters to spend $100,000 (£64,551) each trip.” 
 
 Meanwhile Zimbabwe National Parks has called for stiffer penalties for poachers following the discovery on Tuesday of 26 more elephant carcasses that died of cyanide poisoning at two different locations in the Hwange National Park. 
 
 Cyanide poisoning is a growing problem in the country since a mass poisoning in October 2013 resulted in up to 100 deaths. 
 
 The 26 elephants were discovered by rangers following another discovery last week of 14 other elephants, also poisoned to death by cyanide. ||||| Story highlights An elephant with massive tusks was killed recently in a legal hunt just outside a national park in Zimbabwe 
 
 Zimbabwe has lost 26 elephants to poachers using cyanide in the past month 
 
 (CNN) This time it is not a lion named Cecil, but an unnamed "tusker" elephant whose death is causing controversy. 
 
 Photos: Save the elephants Photos: Save the elephants Save the elephants – Elephants, particularly in Africa, have long been the target of poachers, who look for a quick profit on ivory from their tusks at the expense of a global treasure, says paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey Hide Caption 1 of 5 Photos: Save the elephants Save the elephants – A single tusk from an elephant can bring $30,000, says Leakey. Between 2010 and 2012, some 40,000 elephants were illegally killed each year, according to research published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hide Caption 2 of 5 Photos: Save the elephants Save the elephants – A Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) ranger stands guard over an ivory haul seized as it transited through Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi. In 1989, Leakey, then head of the Kenya Wildlife Services, arranged for a very public burning of 12 tons of ivory in Kenya to discourage trafficking and reduce demand. Hide Caption 3 of 5 Photos: Save the elephants Save the elephants – A study earlier this year showed that more African elephants are being killed each year than being born. Nations, states, cities should ban the ivory trade, says Leakey, and individuals should stop buying items of any kind that have ivory in them. Hide Caption 4 of 5 Photos: Save the elephants Save the elephants – The fight to save the elephants "shows that we cherish the world and appreciate its complexities," says Leakey. "It's essential to preserving the biodiversity of our world and to continuing our ongoing understanding of its evolution -- how we became what we are today." Hide Caption 5 of 5 
 
 Conservationists estimate it is one of the largest tuskers they have seen in the region in 50 years, each tusk estimated to weigh around 55 kilograms (120 pounds). It's so large it looks prehistoric, almost like a wooly mammoth. 
 
 One of the tusks of the killed elephant. 
 
 The hunt that killed this elephant was completely legal. It followed all the regulations and paperwork. In Zimbabwe, like Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and other countries, controlled hunting is legal. 
 
 How it often works is that a professional hunter will bid for a quota of animals from the government. For example: six elephants, four buffaloes, two lions, and smaller game such as gazelles. 
 
 But there are restrictions. Hunters can't kill endangered animals, and certain ethical considerations prevail. It's considered unethical, for example, to hunt a young bull elephant who can probably still mate. However, it's illegal to kill young females that could be nursing a baby. 
 
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– A disturbing number of elephants have been killed in Zimbabwe in recent weeks, including the biggest one seen in decades. An enormous bull elephant was killed on Oct. 8 just outside a national park by a German hunter who had paid $60,000 for a permit, the Telegraph reports. (The link has an image of the elephant.) Conservationists tell CNN that with tusks that weighed around 120 pounds each, the elephant was one of the biggest to be seen in the region for 50 years—and if it hadn't been shot, it could have become a tourist attraction worth a lot more than $60,000. The hunter, who has not been identified, was on a 21-day hunt that also included leopards, lions, buffalo, and rhinoceros, according to the Telegraph. The chairman of Zimbabwe's hunters and guides association tells the Telegraph that the elephant had not been seen in the country before and it was bigger than any of the other five or six "giant tuskers" shot over the last year. He says the client didn't realize just how big the elephant was until it was shot, and he suggests that authorities start collaring unique elephants if they don't want hunters to shoot them. Elsewhere in Zimbabwe, the bodies of 26 elephants that poachers had poisoned with cyanide were found this week, the AP reports. Another 14 were killed in three separate incidents last week and no arrests have been made, authorities say. (The American dentist who killed Cecil the lion appears to be in the clear.)