Tag Archives: elephants

ZimParks relocates 100 elephants, 70 giraffes, 10 lions due to drought

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Harare, Sep 15 (IANS) Amid an ongoing drought, the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) said it has relocated 100 elephants since July and a significant number of other wild animals from the arid southern parts of the country to the north where there is better vegetation and water.

ZimParks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo told Xinhua news agency on Wednesday that the Authority issued permits for the transfer of 2,650 animals from the Save Valley Conservancy to three national parks in the north namely Tsapi, Chizarira and Matusadonha.

The animals targeted for relocation include 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 zebras, 50 buffaloes, 50 elands, 10 lions and 10 wild dogs.

The relocation exercise began in July and so far, 100 elephants and a “significant number of other wild animals” had been relocated, he said.

He said the main reason for relocation was to depopulate overcrowded areas and create a balance in the ecosystem.

Climate change induced-drought resulting in loss of habitat, food, and water was posing a risk to the animals and the only way to protect the habitat was to make sure that we create a balance by relieving pressure on overcrowded areas, Farawo said.

Zimbabwe has become prone to frequent droughts in recent years due to climate change, posing the risk of hunger not only to humans but also to wild animals.

The country has an overpopulation of elephants numbering over 100,000 against an ecological carrying capacity of 45,000.

The jumbos are located in four main ecological zones, and two of the zones are overpopulated.

An elephant herd is spotted near nyamandhlovu pan, a popular water-hole in the Hwange National Park, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe

An elephant herd is spotted near nyamandhlovu pan, a popular water-hole in the Hwange National Park, Matabeleland North Province, Zimbabwe

The four zones are North West Matabeleland where the country’s biggest game park Hwange is located; South East Lowveld, home to the second biggest park Gonarezhou; as well as the Sebungwe region and mid Zambezi in the northern part of the country.

This is not the first time that ZimParks has moved the animals.

Lions

In 2018, it moved 100 elephants from the South East Lowveld to mid Zambezi while plans to relocate 600 elephants in 2020 were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The relocation program is an expensive exercise and ZimParks has in the past lamented inadequate funds to successfully carry out the program.

Imagine World Map Without Humans, Here It Is!

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An interesting study by Arhus University in Spain has come out with a world map sans humans and how it would have shaped the animal world on Earth, if man had not appeared about 100,000 years ago.

 

The fact that the greatest diversity of large mammals is found in Africa reflects past human activities – and not climatic or other environmental constraints. This is determined in a new study, which presents what the world map of mammals would look like if modern man (Homo sapiens) had never existed.

In a world without humans, most of northern Europe would probably now be home to not only wolves, Eurasian elk (moose) and bears, but also animals such as elephants and rhinoceroses.

This is demonstrated in a new study conducted by researchers from Aarhus University, Denmark. In a previous analysis, they have shown that the mass extinction of large mammals during the Last Ice Age and in subsequent millennia (the late-Quaternary megafauna extinction) is largely explainable from the expansion of modern man (Homo sapiens) across the world.

In this follow-up study, they investigate what the natural worldwide diversity patterns of mammals would be like in the absence of past and present human impacts, based on estimates of the natural distribution of each species according to its ecology, biogeography and the current natural environmental template. They provide the first estimate of how the mammal diversity world map would have appeared without the impact of modern man.

“Northern Europe is far from the only place in which humans have reduced the diversity of mammals – it’s a worldwide phenomenon. And, in most places, there’s a very large deficit in mammal diversity relative to what it would naturally have been”, says Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, who is one of the researchers behind the study.