For the most part it wasn’t the case across broad reaches of Africa. Not in Kenya, not in South Africa, etc. There are plenty of old 19th century hunters memoirs around, who made their living off Ivory, making this point. Its a recurring item in Rider Haggards books, and he knew dozens of those guys.
Negative 40 C, huh? Guess that kinda blows my theory they were driven to extinction by global warming.