Zimbabwe overrun with elephants

By Staff Reporter
Last updated: 05/04/2005 10:24:05
ZIMBABWE'S Parks and Wildlife Authority is looking for private buyers for thousands of elephants because its game reserves are overcrowded.

Notices inviting tenders for purchase of the live elephants were published in the government controlled daily, The Herald, on Tuesday. State radio said the elephants are not for export but for wildlife farming by local farmers. It said they would be taken from areas where there were "excessive concentrations".

A Parks Authority official told the radio station it aimed to encourage recipients of 5 000 former white-owned farms "to venture into wildlife production."

He said game sanctuaries that cover a fifth of the country could only carry 45 000 elephants without environmental damage, but currently had 80 000 to 100 000.

Would-be buyers will have to pay one million Zimbabwe dollars ($164) just for a tender form, and must prove they have sufficient land. The average size of larger commercial units allocated to recipients of President Robert Mugabe's controversial "fast track" land redistribution is 250 hectares but experts say each elephant needs a grazing and browsing range of approximately 1.7 square kilometres.

Prospective owners also have to prove they are able to move the 2-5 ton pachyderms safely to their new homes - a process involving the hire of specialist veterinary surgeons, drug darting teams and large teams of labourers, as well as low-loading trucks and special crates.

The advertisements gave no guidelines for prices but at the last auction for trophy elephants in Zimbabwean state-owned safari hunting areas, bull elephants fetched ZWD140-ZWD155 million ($22 950-$25 400) each.

Trophy elephants are ones that are raised for shooting by wealthy tourists who pay a small fortune to hunt the animals and then keep the head.

The closing date for tenders is May 27. The total number of elephants to be auctioned was not disclosed.

After years of controversy, Zimbabwe in 1999 obtained permission from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to sell limited and strictly monitored supplies of ivory to Japan.

However, it has so far held back from culling its annual 500-elephant quota, in deference to vocal international animal welfare lobbyists. Kenya led opposition to any resumed trade in elephant products, including ivory, meat and hides, saying this encouraged smuggling by poaching syndicates.

Wildlife experts, who asked not to be named, rejected South African media reports last month of widespread killing of animals by the Parks Authority to supply hungry tribespeople. They said less than 100 elephants were shot to supply rangers' routine "meat quota" before the April 18 Independence celebrations.

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/dinasaur8.12597.html