Zimbabwe says it will soon export 27 juvenile elephants to Chimelong Safari Park, a vast Chinese corporate leisure centre. Zimbabwe says it will create its own wildlife park within Chimelong and stock it with a range of African animals.
The elephants were captured seven months ago in north-western Zimbabwe and are being held in a protected camp within the state’s 14 000km2 Hwange National Park, controlled by Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.
According to Zanu-PF environment minister, Saviour Kasukawere, the young elephants are all more than 5 years old and have been “tamed” since capture.
“I can confirm they are weaned,” he said. “So they are not baby elephants.”
Kasukawere, who is also national political commissar for President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, said “We plan to create a Zimbabwe wildlife camp in China, as millions of people will pay to see our wildlife there.
“In comparison, very few would come to see our elephants in Zimbabwe, so it makes commercial sense to send our wildlife there.
“After five years we will return them to the forests in Zimbabwe. We will also send other wildlife and our vets will be there to look after our animals’ health and teach the Chinese about the majesty of African elephants.”
He confirms the young elephants will be held within the 150ha Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou in southern China.
The website says there are about 20 000 animals in the Park.
“This sounds like a zoo, not a safari park,” said an executive member of an animal welfare organisation who asked not to be named.
Chimelong also has an “international” circus, but Kasukawere said the Zimbabwean wildlife, including the elephants, would not be going to any circus in China. Nor to any zoo.
He said the details of Zimbabwe’s wildlife park within Chimelong, and travel date and route for the young elephants, had not been finalised.
According to unconfirmed reports the crates were already within the Hwange National Park ready to transport the youngsters away.
Elephant experts say that it would be “nigh impossible” for domesticated jumbos, separated from their families at the age of five, to be reunited with herds in the wild if they are returned to Zimbabwe from China.
Colin Gilles, one of Zimbabwe’s famed elephant counters from Bulawayo, said: “A Zimbabwe wildlife park in China sounds interesting, but we don’t yet have enough details to evaluate what it will mean in terms of welfare for the animals. We need more information.”
He said he had personal experience that successful re-integration of captured elephants into the wild was “hopeless”.
Kasukawere said he would be in contact with the Zimbabwe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, ZNSPCA, which says it has tried for months to secure permission from the Parks Authority to inspect conditions under which the captured juvenile elephants are being held.
ZNSPCA has a record of prosecuting organisations that mistreat elephants. It succeeded in a case against a major Zimbabwe tourist company in Victoria Falls capturing young elephants to train to provide rides for tourists.
Several top international wildlife organisations are preparing a statement objecting to the capture and export of the 27 elephants, according to the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Johannesburg, which says it is collating input from around the world.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) will have to issue permits for the export of the Zimbabwean elephants to China.
But Cites does not have its own representatives in Zimbabwe and movement certificates are issued by the government’s Parks Authority, which captured the juveniles.
Kasukawere says that Zimbabwe “desperately” needs to make up revenue from its wildlife operations “badly hit” since American hunters were banned by the US from taking trophies from Zimbabwe and Tanzania home with them.
It is not known how much exporting the elephants will earn for Zimbabwe and many in the wildlife community say they want to see full accounting for export of Zimbabwe’s elephants.
“They belong to the people of Zimbabwe. We want to see the documentation about their welfare, we want to know about their transport and that they will be well treated and we want to see the accounting for all of this as the elephants are public property,” said a senior member of a wildlife organisation.
Two years ago, three out of four unweaned Zimbabwe baby elephants died after they were exported to China.
In the north-west of Zimbabwe there are at least 20 000 elephants, but according to the Parks Authority there are more than double that number.
In the north-east the population in parts of the Zambezi Valley has dropped in recent years because of poaching, but will rebuild as the birthrate is 5 percent per annum, according to Zimbabwe’s elephant expert and ecologist David Cummings.
He says Zimbabwe had 4 000 elephants 100 years ago and now has about 100 000, with a fast-growing population at the transfrontier park, Gonarezhou.
Kasukawere says the Parks Authority needs money to fight poachers.
He believes the poachers come mainly from Zambia.
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