The South African country Zimbabwe will allow the sacrifice of 200 elephants to combat the food crisis caused by an unprecedented drought. According to Zimbabwe’s Environment Minister, Sithembiso Nyonithe country has “more elephants than it needs.”
Similarly, according to local media, hunters were ordered to kill 200 animalsThe elephant hunt will take place in areas where there have been “confrontations with humans”, including Hwange, home to Zimbabwe’s largest game reserve, the head of the Parks and Wildlife Authority said. Fulton Mangwanya.
Furthermore, according to the World Food ProgrammeZimbabwe is suffering from the worst drought in 40 years. This means that in many areas there is little to eatas crops wither and harvests are scarce. Similarly, the alternative of slaughtering elephants is not new, as neighbouring Namibia has previously used elephants to feed the population, drying and packaging the meat and distributing it.
This is the second such exercise Zimbabwe has conducted since its independence from the United Kingdom in 1980. the first was in 1988. Including this exercise and others conducted since 1965, some 50,000 pachyderms They were sacrificed in the country.
A highly criticized measure
On the other hand, this measure, already adopted previously, is very criticized. “We must put an end to the massacre of elephants,” he declared in a message on the social network X (formerly Twitter). Farai Maguwuwho heads the Center for Natural Resource Governance advocacy group, based in Zimbabwe“Elephants have a right to exist,” he wrote, adding that “future generations have a right to see elephants in their natural habitat.”
The killing of elephants must stop. Some see an opportunity to sell ivory illegally – with those private jets flying in week after week. With the way minerals are being plundered, we will soon have no elephants left to talk about. Hands off our wildlife!
– Farai Maguwu (@FMaguwu) September 15, 2024
Elephants have a right to exist. The fact that they do not speak Ndebele or Shona to defend their right to live must not be used to justify the proposed slaughter – simply because we can. Future generations have a right to see elephants in their natural habitat
– Farai Maguwu (@FMaguwu) September 15, 2024
He World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that only a few remain 415,000 elephants on the continentcompared to between three and five million at the beginning of the 20th century. Asian and African elephants are considered endangered, with the exception of populations in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, where they are classified as “vulnerable”.
