Who on this earth wants to be a tourist in this country while – and/or after – this ghastly slaughter and madness is going on?
…. International Aid reaches Zimbabwe to help feed the people – however ongoing, never-ending, corruption way too often means it rarely gets to where it’s really needed. And we also know for certain in this unscrupulous country that ivory ‘disappears’ from locked storage facilities and that certainly not all National Parks personnel, Police, and other Government/related officials are ethical.
Just as importantly, we know that with the incredible chain of communication skills elephants have, culling will devastate elephant families far and wide, many kilometres away. And I know, too, that it is extremely unlikely that an entire family will be successfully taken out when this slaughter happens.
Drought – their rationale for this cull – is a natural phenomenon. Culling is not….
Elephant matriarchs do NOT always lead in a family, which is a misnomer that these (supposed) sharp-shooters rely on. The matriarch of at least 6 of the 17 family groups that I knew personally – and intimately – in Hwange, Zimbabwe for more than 13 years, very regularly appeared in the open last – or near to last. And some family groups would break up, just temporarily short-term, before coming back together. This means that a targeted family will almost certainly scatter when the first shots are fired, leaving elephant families decimated, shattered and scattered. And devastated.
I don’t need to keep advertising my latest best-selling book ELEPHANT DAWN – about my 13 years of full-time, voluntary conservation work with wild, free-roaming, elephants in Hwange, Zimbabwe, and the remarkably intimate and trusting relationship that was formed with these elephant families – but awareness remains SO important, and with this memoir being an honest, sometimes hard-hitting account of just what happens behind the scenes with elephants there (and the corruption – political and otherwise – that negatively affects them so greatly) – in addition to the many wonderful times with them – it’s something that does need to be read, as difficult and confronting as some paragraphs may be.
Petitions only work if they are actually monitored and properly delivered to the appropriate officials. If there’s ones out there being actioned appropriately, DO sign them. We know that they can make a difference, even if it’s simply raising further awareness and keeping eyes wide open around the world. Flood the ZimParks, Environment Minister and President’s (etc) Facebook and Twitter pages with your disgust.
Despite all that I know and have written about in the past, I have over this last decade encouraged people to still visit Zimbabwe. However with culling going on, would I personally spend my holidays in that country if they continue with this cull?…. NOT IN A MILLION YEARS is the answer to that question.
What a stupid article. I bet this is a westerner writing such rubbish
Hahahaha! ….oh dear, dear Tapera! … Don’t worry – I can give as good as I get, when it comes to uneducated online comments Tapera – which I would not normally waste my time on ….. But I would bet this is just a “STUPID” person who knows nothing whatsoever about elephants (compared to my 13 YEARS of full-time UNPAID conservation work with them), nor anything about the NOT-stupid Western tourists who Zimbabwe rely so much on to boost your ruined economy, and are well-educated and very capable of making sensible (and certainly not “rubbish”) decisions when it comes to their travel plans. And of course I imagine you’re just another government bully…. What a very sad, sad, sort of human… You really could learn a lot from mighty, intelligent, elephants and their families Tapera. But I fully imagine you would be incapable of that…
Hahahaha! ….oh dear, dear Tapera! … Don’t worry – I can give as good as I get, when it comes to uneducated online comments Tapera – which I would not normally waste my time on ….. But I would bet this is just a “STUPID” person who knows nothing whatsoever about elephants (compared to my 13 YEARS of full-time UNPAID conservation work with them), nor anything about the NOT-stupid Western tourists who Zimbabwe rely so much on to boost your ruined economy, and are well-educated and very capable of making sensible (and certainly not “rubbish”) decisions when it comes to their travel plans. And of course I imagine you’re just another government bully…. What a very sad, sad, sort of human… You really could learn a lot from mighty, intelligent, elephants and their families Tapera. But I fully imagine you would be incapable of that…
How many elephants have died to drought in the fast few years
Imagine the entire world’s countries using drought as an excuse to cull their endangered species, or indeed any of their unique animals? Isn’t the world in enough mess already. And Zimbabwe has been trying to find an excuse to cull for decades now, trying to justify it any way they can… Unless you understand – and have personally experienced – the deep corruption in this country, I wouldn’t be trying to (crazily) link the two…. If the corrupt Zim officials didn’t have millions (and probably billions in some cases) in overseas accounts, there’d certainly be enough money to make more water available – for the people as well as for the animals…
…. not to mention the outrageous mansions and excessive lifestyles that those who run the country enjoy …. while the masses of people live in squalor. If only these ‘officials’ shared their pilfered $s around, there would be enough water for all, drought or no drought…. (Places like parts of Hwange National Park for example only exist because of human-made water sources. There are no rivers there. Have the government ever given a cent towards maintaining these waterholes??) You can’t blame drought for that!
Sharon is exactly right on all of her points. The government have removed the article in the Chronicle about them shooting a loved and well-known elephant in the middle of Victoria Falls yesterday, because they control the media. Conservationists can’t speak out because the gov will remove their permits. Foreign newspapers are too naive to comprehend and report on the corruption behind the culls, or link them to the government’s attempts to reopen the international ivory trade. As you say, WHAT would happen to nature if governments worldwide started killing all their protected wildlife. It’s a shameful disaster for wildlife.
Thank you for emphasizing the nature of corruption in Zimbabwe. Why won’t Western countries see this, especially those giving tons of aid to it? They could at least try to use that aid as leverage to pressure the govt. to halt the cull. But in the current climate, where these southern African leaders bash Westerners with the big stick of ‘neocolonialism’ every time they dare object to the mass slaughter of elephants, there seems no appetite to challenge what these corrupt leaders are doing to their people as well as wildlife. In the UK the vocal pro-trophy hunting lobby side with these governments, with the usual ‘they have a sovereign right to manage their wildlife’ line, and sneer at anyone who doesn’t agree.
But it seems if there’s no pushback to Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana (the next cull) killing hundreds or thousands of elephants to feed people, this will happen repeatedly. Is this how endangered African elephants will be decimated year after year while the world looks on?