/ 5 June 2009

Elephant-human clashes force mass translocation

Malawi is teaming up with an animal welfare group to move 60 elephants from a densely populated area, where at least 10 people have been killed.

The government of Malawi is teaming up with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) to move more than 60 elephants from a densely populated area, where at least 10 people have been killed by elephants scavenging for food, Ifaw said on Friday.

A spokesperson for Ifaw told the German Press Agency dpa on Friday that the operation to move the wild elephants from Mangoche district on the southern shores of Lake Malawi to a wildlife reserve would begin at the weekend.

Parts of Malawi, along with parts of Mozambique, Namibia and other Southern African countries with both growing elephant and human populations are grappling with growing cases of human-elephant conflict.

In Malawi the problem arose when a herd of elephants was driven by drought about five years ago from a plateau into a densely populated lakeside district of mainly subsistence farmers, Ifaw’s Christina Pretorius told dpa.

As the human population swells, eating into the elephants’ habitats, the elephants have begun raiding the villagers crops and granaries, Ifaw said.

The enraged villagers are fighting back, using bullets, arrows and snares.

”Some elephants have had their trunks amputated by snares set by local villagers, while others are suffering from wounds caused by bullets, arrows and nail-embedded planks as well as poisoning,” Jason Bell-Leask Ifaw’s southern Africa director said in a statement announcing the elephant rescue operation.

”In order to save these elephants, we must act now — otherwise they will be killed as problem animals,” he said.

Over the next month, Ifaw will dart and tranquilise the elephants and then load them into vehicles for the six-hour journey to Majete Wildlife Reserve in the south-west.

Meanwhile, Mozambique’s state-controlled daily Noticias reported on Friday that more than 5 000 families have been forced to abandon their homes after elephant attacks near the northern Quirimbas national park.

The residents of Nraha village started fleeing their village in April, moving to safer zones, the report said, citing authorities in Quissanga district of Cabo Delgado province.

The elephants have affected the villagers’ food production as the elephants ate the cereals produced in the community.

It had led to high rates of school absenteeism as children would not go to school as they feared the animals would attack them.

In Mozambique elephants, hippopotamuses, and crocodiles are considered problem animals. The government in 2007 authorised the army to shoot problem animals. — Sapa-dpa