Elephants flee Zimbabwe as poaching increases

By Alex Bell
28 April 2009

Zimbabwe’s endangered elephants have become the latest ‘refugees’ fleeing the country, moving in their hundreds across the border to the relative safety of Zimbabwe’s neighbours.

According to the independent Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, as many as 400 elephants have crossed the Zambezi River into neighbouring Zambia in recent months. Another three elephants, which roamed into Mutare this month, could soon face slaughter, with state wildlife authorities bent on destroying the animals before they cause human harm. The task force has said this week that increasing human encroachment into areas previously reserved for wildlife has partly driven the sudden migration.

The alarming trend is also being linked to the increase in poaching across the country, which has been crippled by desperate food shortages. Conservationists say that villagers have been torching the bush to drive out even the smallest of animals into the open, to catch for food, and that more fencing around wildlife preserves is needed to stop the poaching. But, more concerning than poaching driven by hunger, is the increase of poaching driven by the almost complete breakdown of law enforcement.

The alarm has already been raised for Zimbabwe’s rare rhino population, although for many years poaching had been relatively well controlled. But now there is an upsurge. Last week a heavily armed rhino poacher, identified as a former army officer, was shot and killed by rangers in southern Zimbabwe. The surge in rhino poaching has been blamed on “well co-ordinated local, regional and international syndicates” and has caught the attention of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), an international regulatory body.

“Rhino poaching is now becoming a very serious concern for us,” the head of the state Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Morris Mtsambiwa told state media on Monday. “We now have to answer serious questions at CITES.”

The ongoing threat against Zimbabwe’s wildlife is set to further damage the country’s already depleted tourism industry, as game viewing was once a highlight of a Zimbabwe tour. Tourism and photographic safaris have dropped in number significantly in recent years due to the political crisis, but with the ongoing animal slaughter and forced animal migration, there soon won’t be any wildlife left to attract tourists back to the country, when the political madness is over.