Zimbabwe is planing on sending over 60 baby elephants to China, the UAE, and France even though there has been some controversy regarding this situation. The reason for exporting the elephants is because the country needs to reduce the elephant population. The Zimbabwe government announced in December 2014 that due to the rise in the elephant population it would begin a program that would remove elephants from Hwange National Park and try to control the amount of elephants.The number of elephants was double what Zimbabwe could hold. There would be 27 baby elephants going to China, then 15 going to the UAE, and another 20 taken to France. Also there is a buyer that's paying 26,000 euros for each animal.
Conservation groups are calling this "inhumane" and "wrong". There was a statement from Peta saying "these innocent and terrified babies have been traumatically stolen from their families and their natural habitat, only to be sold to the highest bidder and sentenced to life of abuse and captivity. And in 2012 four baby elephants died after being exported to China from Zimbabwe. The U.S. and European Unions signed a petition to stop the exporting of baby elephants from Zimbabwe. The government said that they just don't have the funds or the resources to take care of them.
I agree with the statement Peta made but I also understand that the government needs to do what's best for Zimbabwe. If the people could see where the elephants were going and knew they were going to a safe place maybe it wouldn't be as bad. The elephants should be going to another wildlife center or national park where they would be taken care of properly and they should also be surrounded by other elephants.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/zimbabwe-defends-its-decision-to-export-over-60-baby-elephants-abroad-despite-protests-9965330.html
On nature.org there is a page titled "The Nature Controversy" and they have a campaign going called #SaveTheElephants where they are trying to raise awareness for your very topic. You can give them your e-mail and they will email you herd-alerts,things that you can do, and maybe involve people,and send you updates from Africa and China. In return all they ask is that you promise to never forget that elephants are facing the most urgent, heartbreaking poaching crisis in history. They wont send you pictures of any dead elephants, and they wont beg you to donate though you can. All they ask is that you try to help raise awareness for them and for the elephants.
ReplyDeleteI just recently saw an interview with Kathryn Bigelow, who is a director of an animated documentary film called "Last Days" that sheds light on the gross number of elephants being killed each day for ivory. By her estimates, the wild elephant population will be nonexistent in roughly 20 years, which is astonishing. If you're interested, check out www.lastdaysofivory.com.
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