Zimbabwean authorities are considering moving elephants from the country’s overburdened national parks to Namibia after at least 50 pachyderms starved to death, a state daily reported on Monday.
About 50 elephants died in separate incidents in the famous Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe’s dry southwestern region, prompting senior government officials to visit the area to investigate the cause of the deaths.
”I wanted to ascertain on behalf of the government the main causes of the deaths of the elephants,” deputy minister for environment and tourism Andrew Langa told The Herald.
The newspaper reported that the animals died ”because of shortage of water and pasture”.
”The situation is bad in the game park. Some of the solutions we are looking at in order to reduce the deaths are to cull and take some of the elephants to Namibia,” Langa told the newspaper.
He said the Cabinet would meet to discuss the plans to relocate the animals.
In May the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority invited Zimbabwean farmers to buy elephants to decongest areas where elephant populations are concentrated.
Zimbabwe has about 100 000 elephants against its carrying capacity of 45 000.
”If trends continue at this rate we are going to have a major disaster,” national parks chief Morris Mutsambiwa warned.
”Vegetation will be destroyed and water will run out in parks. If we have a major drought we are going to have massive deaths of elephants and other animals as they run out of food and water,” he said. – AFP
