Due to lack of water, at least 100 elephants have died in Zimbabwe’s largest national park. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), “the prolonged dry season has dried up waterholes once abundant into mud puddles” in Hwange National Park.
At least 100 elephants have died from lack of water in Zimbabwe’s largest national park, an animal rights organization said Monday. “The prolonged dry season has dried up once-abundant waterholes into mud puddles” in Hwange National Park, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said in a statement. “At least 100 elephants have been reported dead due to this lack of water,” he added.
More than 200 elephants died in Zimbabwe in 2019
Hwange National Park covers 14,600 km2 and is home to some 45,000 elephants. “The park is equipped with 104 boreholes powered by solar energy, but which according to management are not sufficient to cope with the extreme temperatures which dry up water points and force wild animals to travel long distances to find water. water and food,” adds the IFAW. Last September, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority reported that “many animals” had left the national park to look for water and food in neighboring Botswana.
The expected animal deaths as a result “must be seen as a symptom of the complex and deep problems that threaten the conservation of the region’s natural resources, worsened by climate change,” said Phillip Kuvawoga, an IFAW expert. In 2019, more than 200 elephants died in Zimbabwe, according to the IFAW, which warns of this “recurring phenomenon”. Zimbabwe is home to some 100,000 elephants, the second largest population of pachyderms in the world, and twice the theoretical capacity of its parks, according to conservationists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has classified southern Africa as a region particularly threatened by extreme heat and reduced rainfall caused by global warming.