Zimbabwe plans to slaughter 200 elephants to provide food for communities suffering from the worst drought in four decades, wildlife authorities.
The El Niño-induced drought has devastated southern Africa, leading to widespread crop failures and leaving 68 million people facing food shortages across the region.
“We can confirm that we are planning to cull about 200 elephants across the country.
We are working on the modalities of how we are going to do it,” Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (Zimparks), told Reuters. He added that the elephant meat will be distributed to communities severely impacted by the drought.
This will be Zimbabwe’s first elephant cull since 1988, taking place in districts such as Hwange, Mbire, Tsholotsho, and Chiredzi. The decision follows a similar move by Namibia, which recently culled 83 elephants to provide meat to those affected by the drought.
Southern Africa is home to one of the largest elephant populations in the world, with more than 200,000 elephants across Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Angola, and Namibia.
Zimbabwe currently has over 84,000 elephants, though its national parks are only able to support 55,000. According to Farawo, the cull aims to reduce pressure on the parks and address increasing human-wildlife conflicts. Last year, 50 people in Zimbabwe were killed by elephants.
Zimbabwe, known for its conservation efforts, has been advocating for the UN’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to lift the ban on selling ivory and live elephants, as the country holds an estimated $600 million in unsellable ivory stockpiles.
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