Blogging About Critters Since 2007

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Huge Effort to Rescue 60 Elephants in Malawi

They are being moved to a wildlife sanctuary. There has been a lot of violence between the elephants and subsistence farmers (unfortunately, I think the violence is pretty one-sided.)

From Wildlife Extra News....
Rescuers have started evacuating the first of around 60 elephants that have been suffering in an ongoing human-elephant conflict in the southern African country of Malawi, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare - IFAW.

...IFAW has partnered with the government of Malawi to rescue the animals which are at the centre of fierce human-elephant conflict in an area populated mostly by subsistence farmers just south of Lake Malawi.

{Jason Bell-Leask, IFAW Director Southern Africa} said "For years the herd has been maimed by local villagers, sometimes using appallingly cruel methods to protect their crops and granaries from raids by the elephants. To bring this desperate situation into sharp focus, our team on the ground reports that one of the elephants darted this morning is missing the bottom portion of her trunk - probably as a result of a snare."

1 comment:

Andrew said...

Ana,

This sounds to me like a proactive and sensible approach to protect the animals and to avert any further escalation of what sounds like a fairly nasty situation.

Well done, IFAW!

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