The organization Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is warning that elephant populations have suffered “enormous” losses since the start of the civil war in South Sudan in December 2013.

In the 1970s, South Sudan was home to an estimated 80,000 elephants. The following decades of civil war had a ‘catastrophic’ impact on these elephants and other wildlife populations, according to WCS.

Surveys conducted since 2007 have shown that the remaining population may be somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000. Conservation efforts during the inter-war period included deployment of 60 GPS/satellite tracking collars, which WCS used to monitor elephants’ movement and detect poaching hotspots.

In its October 2014 newsletter, distributed by email on Monday, WCS stated, “We have established that, of collared elephants alive in December 2013, 30% are likely to have been killed by poachers over the months since the conflict broke out. In less than a year we have witnessed this enormous loss.”

“This indicates that there are an alarming number of elephants being poached during this ongoing war. Through law enforcement efforts eight seizures of ivory (totaling 65 tusks) have been made over the past ten months, further demonstrating the high rate of poaching and trafficking,” the newsletter adds.

WCS also warned of high poaching of giraffe and tiang antelope. The organization urged South Sudanese to respect elephants so as to ensure their survival.