The Zimbabwean government has sanctioned the killing of 200 elephants to help address food shortages and reduce the rising tension between wildlife and humans.
Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority, confirmed the decision to CNN on Monday.
“We are targeting to cull 200 elephants,” Farawo stated, expressing concerns over increasing elephant-human conflict fueled by severe drought conditions in the country.
“The animals are causing a lot of havoc in communities, killing people. Last week, we lost a woman in the northern part of the country who was killed by an elephant. The previous week, the same thing happened. So it (the culling) is also a way of controlling,” he further added.
Local reports indicate that over 30 people have been killed this year due to such conflicts.
Reuters also reported that the culling aims to decongest national parks, which currently house over 84,000 elephants, far beyond the 55,000 the parks are equipped to sustain.
“It’s an effort to decongest the parks in the face of drought. The numbers are just a drop in the ocean because we are talking of 200 (elephants) and we are sitting on plus 84,000, which is big,” Farawo said.
The United Nations has identified Zimbabwe as one of its “hunger hotspots,” with over seven million people at risk of acute hunger due to extreme droughts, worsened by the El Niño weather pattern.
In response to similar challenges, Namibia also recently approved elephant culling to manage food insecurity and human-wildlife conflicts as drought conditions worsen across the region.
