Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, blanketed in emerald-green rain forest, should be a haven for endangered Asian elephants. But cameras triggered by motion sensors reveal that most of the baby elephants in the region have been injured, some fatally, by wire traps intended for other animals.

Thousands of snares litter the stomping grounds of the Cardamoms’ resident elephants. Hunters set them in order to feed the nation’s growing demand for bush meat from illegally caught wild animals, especially wild pigs and deer. The snares often inadvertently cripple or kill other animals.

Local people believed the contraptions were not harming the elephants, according to Jackson Frechette, flagship species manager for Fauna & Flora International Cambodia, a wildlife conservation organization. “They thought elephants ripped