Animal caravan starts a great trek
SIX thousand animals, 100 g ame- kee pers, veterinarians, ecologists, helicopter pilots and a convoy of lorry drivers and a single goal: to restock the depleted Zinave National Park in Mozambique.
Starting this week and over the next 10 weeks, an initial “rewilding caravan” of 2 000 animals spanning 50 elephants, 200 zebras, 100 giraffes, 900 impalas, 200 buffaloes, 200 eland, 300 wildebeests and 50 kudus will be rounded up from inside Zimbabwe’s Savé Valley Conservancy and make an epic 600km trek to Zinave in Inhambane province.
Initiative “Re-Wild” is one of the largest wildlife translocation projects in Africa, says the Peace Parks Foundation.
A further 500 animals will be sourced from Gorongosa National Park, where sufficient numbers of wildlife have been built up through a partnership between the gover nment of Mozambique and the Gorongosa Restoration Project.
The mammoth project is spearheaded by the gover nments of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, as partners to the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, of which Zinave is a vital component.
By 2019, over 6 000 animals, including hundreds of elephants, giraffes, zebras and wildebeests donated by the Sango Wildlife Conservancy in Savé Valley Conservancy in south-eastern Zimbabwe will have moved to their new home.
“It’s planned to move a total of 7 500 animals to Zinave, where they’ll first be released into a fenced 18 500ha sanctuary and later into the core development area of the park,” says the foundation.
Until the mid-1970s, Zinave was an oasis for huge herds until the civil war decimated the entire animal population.
The goal, says the foundation, is to help develop Zinave into a tourist destination, as the park is ideally situated close to one of Mozambique’s tourism development nodes, the Vilanculos-Bazaruto Archipelago.
Zinave, once restocked and developed, “could become sought-after by tourists, as a big five wildlife destination close to the coast”.
But the epic translocation has already courted some controversy, not least because of Sango’s association with trophy hunting, which generates a large part of its income, and Mozambique’s high rate of elephant poaching.
“Sango enjoys a surplus in wild animal populations thanks to its successful, sustainable measures, use and wildlife management,” says Wilfried Pabst, its founder, citing its ecological success.
“Sustainable and responsible use of nature and the animal population has laid the foundation for one of the largest resettlements of wild animals in Africa in the modern age: Initiative Re-Wild.”
This week, The Guardian reported how the Humane Society International termed Sango little more than a “wildlife ranch”, describing the translocation as “misguided” and “potentially deadly” for individual animals.
It is also concerned about Mozambique having one of the highest rates of poaching in southern Africa.
Andrea Crosta, of the Elephant Action League, agrees. “It’s certainly a big concern when you move elephants to a country that lost half of its elephants in the past five to six years. It’s a massive relocation,” he told the Saturday Star.
“In Mozambique, poaching is far from being under control, but its seaports, like Maputo, Pemba or Mocimboa da Praia are known trafficking hubs for products such as illegal timber, ivory and rhino horn. Those ports a liability for that part of Africa.
“But I know the ( Peace Parks) foundation is a serious organisation. I hope they did their homework.
“Certainly those elephants will need to be monitored and protected, including with serious intelligence work around Zinave.”
Werner Myburgh, the chief executive of Peace Parks, says the translocated animals will be placed inside a protected, electrically fenced sanctuary inside Zinave National Park, to “maximise their safety while they’re settling in”.
“In addition, the foundation has signed a 10-year renewable management agreement with the Mozambique government and through this approach is providing additional support for anti-poaching, which is central to the many support functions that the foundation will provide.”
This includes the appointment of additional senior Peace Parks Foundation and National Administration for Conservation Areas staff to improve the management of the park.
“The park is also increasing its anti-poaching unit with 30 newly trained and equipped field rangers.
“Animals will only be released into the wider park area at a stage when the sanctuary approaches its carrying capacity and when park management have assessed these areas to be acceptably secure.”
Myburgh says rewilding is not new, citing the examples of the Pilanesberg and Madikwe game reserves. “Excluding the present translocations, the Peace Parks Foundation has translocated over 9 400 animals since 2001, to Zinave, Limpopo National Park and Maputo Special Reserve in Mozambique, as well as to the Simalaha Community Conservancy in Zambia,” he says.