Zimbabwe moves 2,500 wild animals because of climate change
A helicopter herds thousands of impalas into an enclosure. A crane hoists sedated upside-down elephants into trailers.
HARARE, Zimbabwe — A helicopter herds thousands of impalas into an enclosure. A crane hoists sedated upside-down elephants into trailers. Hordes of rangers drive other animals into metal cages and a convoy of trucks starts a journey of about 700 kilometers (435 miles) to take the animals to their new home.
Zimbabwe has begun moving more than 2,500 wild animals from a southern reserve to one in the country’s north to rescue them from drought, as the ravages of climate change replace poaching as the biggest threat to wildlife.
About 400 elephants, 2,000 impalas, 70 giraffes, 50 buffaloes, 50 wildebeest, 50 zebras, 50 elands, 10 lions and a pack of 10 wild dogs are among the animals being moved from Zimbabwe’s Save Valley Conservancy to three conservancies in the north — Sapi, Matusadonha and Chizarira — in one of southern Africa’s biggest live animal capture and translocation exercises.
“Project Rewild Zambezi,” as the operation is called, is moving the animals to an area in the Zambezi River valley to rebuild the wildlife populations there.
It’s the first time in 60 years that Zimbabwe has embarked on such a mass internal movement of wildlife. Between 1958 and 1964, when the country was white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, more than 5,000 animals were moved in what was called “Operation Noah.” That operation rescued wildlife from the rising water caused by the construction of a massive hydro-electric dam on the Zambezi River that created one of the world’s largest man-made lakes, Lake Kariba.
Rating: 5