Zimbabwe to Sell Rights to Hunt Endangered Elephants

An African savanna elephant is one of the species of elephants included in Zimbabwe’s sale of hunting rights. (Flickr)

Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) announced on April 22 that it will begin the sale of hunting rights to shoot nearly 500 endangered elephants. Tinashe Farawo, the spokesman for Zimparks, stated that the decrease in tourism caused by COVID-19 prompted this decision. The right to shoot an elephant will cost trophy hunters between $10,000 and $70,000, and the resulting revenue will be used to fund Zimbabwean national parks. Zimparks will welcome trophy hunters during the country’s rainy season, which is from April to October. 

Zimparks’ decision faced strong backlash from environmental groups. The spokeswoman for the Center for Natural Resource Governance, Simiso Mlevu, stated that the decision was appalling: “We strongly condemn trophy hunting—a practice that agitates wild animals and escalates human-wildlife conflicts.” Mlevu also refuted Zimparks’ argument that trophy hunting assists with conservation: “The practice is motivated by greed and often the money is not even accounted for. There is a need for more innovative and eco-friendly measures to improve revenue generation from photo safaris and tourism in general.”

Zimparks’ announcement came only weeks after the International Union for Conservation of Nature declared the African savanna elephant as “endangered” and the African forest elephant as “critically endangered.” Both species had previously been treated as a single group that was considered “vulnerable.” The two elephant species have declined rapidly over the past few decades. Within the past 30 years, forest elephants have decreased by more than 86 percent and savanna elephants have decreased by around 60 percent over the last 50 years. 

Zimbabwe is not the only African country that allows elephant trophy hunting. In December, Namibia sold 170 “high value” elephants due to a drought and an increase in the elephant population. Botswana, which has the largest elephant population, recently resumed elephant hunting after a five-year ban. 

In addition, despite dwindling international numbers, Zimbabwe actually has a surplus of elephants; the country houses around 84,000 elephants for a carrying capacity of 50,000. 

Farawo stated that this decision is necessary to maintain national parks: “How do we fund our operations, how do we pay our men and women who spend 20 days in the bush looking after these animals?” Farawo also noted that given the elephant surplus and recent droughts in national parks, there has been an increase in the number of human-elephant accidents; this includes damage to crops and even occasional human fatalities. 

The hunting rights will not only include a license to kill the elephant, but it will also pay professional hunters to guide them and have their trophy kills treated by taxidermists and shipped back to their home countries. The elephants will be killed in hunting concessions rather than the parks that are frequented by tourists. 

Despite the controversy over Zimparks’ decision, Farawo continues to defend the government’s decisions and stated that the practice has been going on since 1991: “There is no need to make noise about it.”