/ 4 May 2001

Relocation saves Kruger?s elephants

UP to 1_000 elephants that were due to be culled in terms of the Kruger National Park?s conservation management plan will be given a new lease of life in neighbouring Mozambique.

About 100 Kruger elephants are scheduled to be released in Mozambique between October and the end of the year, while the rest will be relocated over the next two years. The relocation is part of an ambitious plan to form a mega transfrontier park embracing South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

When the elephants are transported to Coutada 16, a mirror image of the northern Kruger Park on the Mozambican side, they will in effect be going home after 27 years. South African authorities responsible for putting up an electric fence along the border in 1974 were accused of driving elephant herds out of Mozambique into the Kruger before fencing it off.

Coutada 16 is currently operating as a hunting concession and is inhabited by a scattering of communities eking out a post-civil war survival along the watercourses. There are fears South Africa aims to get rid of its elephant surplus by offering up the animals to poachers and hunters in Mozambique.

But Leo Braack, coordinator of the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou (GKG) Transfrontier Park, says not a single elephant will be moved until fencing and anti-poaching units have been secured on the Mozambican side.

?The status of Coutada 16 will be changed from a hunting concession to a protected area, preferably a national park,? he says. ?Our Mozambican colleagues have been negotiating with the communities in the area, and the final details of the exact borders of the park must still be negotiated.?

Braack says South Africa won?t charge Mozambique for the relocated elephants, though R10m has been committed by a private sponsor to cover the costs of the relocations. The German Development Bank will fund the R30m needed to fence Coutada 16 and train anti-poaching units.

The electrified fence between the two countries will also be lowered, with a substantial portion removed by the time of the official launch of the new transfrontier park. The launch, which was set to take place in November, has been postponed to April 2002 at the request of the Mozambican government.

Braack says even when the fence is dropped, it is unlikely the relocated elephants will head back to the Kruger, though they are famously territorial creatures. The first 100 will be released in the south-western corner of Coutada 16.

?They will be moved to prime elephant habitat, with good food and water. The Lebombo Mountains form a significant natural barrier along the border, so we don?t expect to see them back in the Kruger,? he says.

?Before release they will be held in a boma to settle down for a few days. We will also radio-collar some of them and monitor their movements.?

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