"By 1961, eighty-five percent of Africa's elephants had been _decimated_."

[Wilson Gray]

There's nothing to be said, really. _Decimate_ is just a big word for "kill."

--
-Wilson
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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org