OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Luanda | Monday
SEVEN elephants airlifted from South Africa are settling into their new home in the Angolan veld, spearheading an infusion of wildlife into the war-torn country’s decimated national reserves.
The elephants’ new life in the grassy river plains of Kissama, south of the Angolan capital Luanda, began after a hard 30-hour, 3 500 km journey over scorching bush tracks and a bone-shaking Soviet-era cargo plane.
The transfer was tinged with tragedy when one elephant fell to its knees and suffocated after landing at an Angolan military airstrip.
Operation Noah’s Ark, led by the government-backed Kissama Foundation, aims to restore what was once one of Africa’s most densely populated and diverse animal regions before a 25-year-old civil war led to an uncontrolled poaching spree that virtually wiped out all major wildlife.
Kissama, blessed with 120 km of untouched coastline, river flood plains and 1.2m ha of dense thicket and tree savana, saw all its wildlife disappear in the war still being fought by Luanda and the Unita rebel movement.
Kissama will receive around 10 more elephants from the same Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West province this week before launching a scheme to bring in 300 elephants by boat from neighbouring Botswana into the park next year.
Roan antelope, eland, dwarf forest buffalo, hippopotamus, southern reedbuck and waterbuck have also been selected to brought in from foreign countries in a $11m operation that will take in other Angolan parkland.
”The civil war is basically over and Angola is one of the most beautiful countries in Africa. We are convinced that tourism will certainly start moving in Angola,” said Wouter van Hoven, president of the Kissama Foundation, which is backed by the Angolan military government.
Sending elephants to Angola has attracted strong criticism from animal groups who fear the elephants are still vulnerable to poachers. Kissama says a fenced area, 45 armed guards, tracking devices attached to the elephants and military support from the Angolan army will ensure the safety of the elephants.
”These elephants are going to be probably the most protected elephants in the whole of Africa,” said van Hoven. – Reuters