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Zimbabwe moves 2,500 wild animals due to drought from climate change
Posted Yesterday at 3:09pm
two men and a woman help to lift an elephant into the back of a truck using a hoist
Elephants are among the wildlife to be moved due to prolonged drought.(AP: Thoko Chikondo, file)
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A helicopter herds thousands of impalas into an enclosure. A crane hoists sedated upside-down elephants into trailers. Hordes of rangers drive other animals into metal cages and a convoy of trucks starts a journey of about 700 kilometres to take the animals to their new home.
Key points:

The animals are being moved to rebuild wildlife populations in the Zambezi River valley
Their habitat has become parched by prolonged drought
The operation is the country's first mass movement of wildlife in 60 years

Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country's north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife.

About 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 buffaloes, 50 wildebeest, 50 zebras, 50 elands, 10 lions and a pack of 10 wild dogs are among the animals being moved from Zimbabwe's Save Valley Conservancy to three conservancies in the north — Sapi, Matusadonha and Chizarira — in one of southern Africa's biggest live-animal capture and translocation exercises.

Project Rewild Zambezi, as the operation is called, is moving the animals to an area in the Zambezi River valley to rebuild the wildlife populations there.

It is the first time in 60 years that Zimbabwe has embarked on such a mass internal movement of wildlife.

Between 1958 and 1964, when the country was white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, more than 5,000 animals were moved in what was called Operation Noah.

That operation rescued wildlife from the rising water caused by the construction of a massive hydro-electric dam on the Zambezi River that created one of the world's largest man-made lakes, Lake Kariba.

This time it was a lack of water that had made it necessary to move wildlife as their habitat had become parched by prolonged drought, Tinashe Farawo, spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said.
elephants lie on the ground near a truck as people attach hoists
Across Africa, national parks are increasingly threatened due to development and below-average rainfall.(AP: Thoko Chikondo, file)

The parks agency issued permits to allow the animals to be moved to avert "a disaster from happening", Mr Farawo said.

"We are doing this to relieve pressure," Mr Farawo said.

"For years, we have fought poaching and just as we are winning that war, climate change has emerged as the biggest threat to our wildlife.

"Many of our parks are becoming overpopulated and there is little water or food.

"The animals end up destroying their own habitat, they become a danger unto themselves and they encroach neighbouring human settlements for food, resulting in incessant conflict."

One option would be culling to reduce the numbers of wildlife, but conservation groups protest that such killings are cruel.

Zimbabwe last conducted culling in 1987, Mr Farawo said.

The effects of climate change on wildlife is not isolated to Zimbabwe.

Across Africa, national parks that are home to myriad wildlife species such as lions, elephants and buffaloes are increasingly threatened by below-average rainfall and new infrastructure projects.

Authorities and experts say drought has seriously threatened species like rhinos, giraffes and antelope by reducing the amount of food available.

For example, a recent study conducted in South Africa's Kruger National Park linked extreme weather events to the loss of plants and animals unable to cope with the drastic conditions and lack of water due to longer dry spells and hotter temperatures.
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The hull of a boat stands directly upright in a lake bed. 3/4 of the boat are dark where it was previously submerged.
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The mass movement is supported by the Great Plains Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works "to conserve and expand natural habitats in Africa through innovative conservation initiatives", according to its website.

The organisation is working with the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, local experts, the University of Washington-Seattle's Centre for Environmental Forensic Science and Oxford University's Department of Zoology, according to the website.

One of the new homes for the animals moved in Zimbabwe is Sapi Reserve. The privately run private concession is east of Mana Pools National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its splendid setting along the Zambezi River that forms the border between Zimbabwe with Zambia.

Great Plains chief executive officer Dereck Joubert said on the foundation's website Sapi was "the perfect solution for many reasons".

"This reserve forms the middle-Zambezi biosphere, totalling 1.6 million acres," Mr Joubert wrote.

"From the 1950s until we took it over in 2017, decades of hunting had decimated wildlife populations in Sapi Reserve. We are rewilding and restoring the wild back to what it once was."

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
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