The Zimbabwean government has authorized the culling of 200 elephants to feed its starving population, amidst a severe drought.
Tinashe Farawo, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority, made this announcement on Monday.
“We are targeting to cull 200 elephants,” Farawo said, lamenting rising cases of elephant-human conflict amid lingering food insecurity caused by severe drought in the East African country.
“The animals are causing a lot of havoc in communities, killing people. Last week, we lost a woman in the northern part of the country who was killed by an elephant. The previous week, the same thing happened. So it (the culling) is also a way of controlling,” he said.
According to local media, this year, over 30 persons have been killed in different wildlife-human conflicts in Zimbabwe.
Farawo was quoted to have said that the development is also part of the country’s efforts to decongest its parks, which can only sustain 55,000 elephants.
Zimbabwe is home to over 84,000 elephants.
“It’s an effort to decongest the parks in the face of drought. The numbers are just a drop in the ocean because we are talking of 200 (elephants) and we are sitting on plus 84,000, which is big,” he said.
Recall that the United Nations, UN, had estimated that over seven million are at risk of acute hunger in Zimbabwe, declaring it as one of the hunger hotspots.
The UN in a statement early August, “A new report from the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) reveals that food insecurity levels in Zimbabwe are rapidly deteriorating after it was hit with historic droughts due to the El Niño weather pattern.”
Zimbabwe’s decision to cull elephants is set to be implemented in the coming weeks, following closely on the heels of the Namibian government’s adoption of a similar measure. This step has been taken to address both potential food insecurity and wildlife-human conflicts, exacerbated by the intensifying effects of drought.
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