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GAME INDUSTRY TRENDS ANALYSIS 2024
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Zimbabwe To Cull Elephants To Feed The Hungry
Zimbabwe to cull elephants to feed the hungry
By Annelie Coleman | 10 October 2024 | 9:09 am
Zimbabwe recently confirmed its intension to cull 200 elephants to feed communities facing acute hunger following the worst drought that country had seen in four decades.
Zimbabwe has decided to cull 200 elephants following an earlier declaration of a national state of disaster caused by the drought that left 2,7 million people in rural areas food insecure. Photo: Marianne Botha
This followed in the wake of an announcement by the Namibian government that it planned to cull 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants. In both countries, the meat will be distributed to people left food insecure by the severe El Niño-induced drought in Southern Africa.
“We can confirm that we are planning to cull about 200 elephants across the country. We are working on modalities on how we are going to do it,” Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told Reuters.
The culls will take place in the Hwange, Mbire, Tsholotsho and Chiredzi districts.
More than 200 000 elephants were estimated to live in a conservation area spread over five Southern African countries, namely Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Angola and Namibia, making the region home to one of the largest elephant populations in the world.
According to Reuters, the culling also formed part of Zimbabwe’s efforts to decongest its parks.
While its national parks could only accommodate 55 000 elephants, the country’s elephant population now stood at more than 84 000.
Farawo added that with such a severe drought, human-wildlife conflicts could escalate as resources became scarcer.
Last year, 50 people lost their lives to elephant attacks in Zimbabwe.
Sean Hensman, a researcher at Adventures with Elephants in South Africa, told Farmer’s Weekly that although culling often was an emotive issue, sustainable use of wildlife was of the essence to ensure the conservation of game species.
“Adding value to game animals and creating a realisation among communities that game were in fact beneficial to them would play an immense role in the protection of species.
“It would nullify the need to poach or to carry out revenge attacks on animals that, for instance, destroyed their crops,” he said.
Hensman added that elephants were running out of space on the African continent.
According to him, it was projected that Africa’s population would reach 2,5 billion people by 2050, compared with the current population of 1,4 billion people.
“That is why local communities must be educated to consider wildlife as a renewable resource and to change the perspective that elephants in particular are problem animals,” Hensman stated.
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