Harare, Zimbabwe – Africa’s elephant population has been dangerously declining – but not in Zimbabwe.

Authorities in the southern African country estimate that the number of its mammoth mammals currently stands at slightly more than 100,000 – up from 84,000 in 2014, when the last census was conducted – for a carrying capacity of about 45,000.

“We are overpopulated when it comes to elephants in this country,” Tinashe Farawo, spokesman of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZimParks) told Al Jazeera.

Authorities maintain the growing elephant population poses a risk to other animals by causing habitat destruction, and has also led to an increase in the instances of dangerous human-wildlife interaction, with dozens of deaths reported in recent years.

He noted that the plan is still in its “formative stages” and a final decision has yet to be made, but stressed that culling is permitted by Zimbabwe laws.

But the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), an environmental and human rights watchdog in Zimbabwe documenting poaching, opposed the plan.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “Very soon we will be forced to travel to other countries just to see an elephant.”

Earlier this year, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the African forest elephant as “critically endangered” and the African savanna elephant as “endangered”, citing a surge in poaching and loss of habitat for the declining numbers.

According to the Swiss-based group’s latest assessments, the number of African forest elephants dropped by more than 86 percent over a period of 31 years. Meanwhile, the population of African savanna elephants fell by at least 60 percent over the past half a century.

Zimbabwe has the continent’s second-largest elephant population after Botswana, which boasts about a third of Africa’s 415,000 remaining elephants.

Other options

Besides culling, another option considered by Zimbabwean authorities is to move elephants from areas with a high population. But both are hampered by lack of funds, Farawo said.

“It’s an expensive process and right now we have no money,” he added. “In 2018, we moved 100 elephants and the exercise cost us $400,000.”

Farawo said ZimParks, a government body, requires at least $25m annually for its operations. But the body has not received any funding from Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped government since 2001.

Farawo said his organisation needed revenue to conserve elephants but its finances took a big hit in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic severely affected the country’s tourism industry.

In late April, Zimbabwe said it was planning to sell hunting licenses to kill 500 elephants to generate revenue. Trophy hunters are expected to pay between $10,000 and $70,000 depending on elephant size.

The 500-elephant hunting quota, which is separate from the culling plan, is allowed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), according to Farawo, who said that “elephants must pay for their upkeep”.

“The elephants also have to take care of themselves, so we must be allowed to trade in order for that to happen,” Farawo said.

“[This] means that money must be generated, revenue coming off the elephants. Right now, tourism is dead, so people aren’t coming to see the elephants.”

But Mlevu, of CNRG, said that culling would affect tourism – a position echoed by John Robertson, a prominent Zimbabwean economist.

“It inflicts serious damage on wildlife,” Robertson told Al Jazeera. “Losing wildlife also reduces the prospects of tourism, which the country heavily relies on.”

Audrey Delsink, wildlife director of Humane Society International/Africa, said killing elephants has “a traumatic effect on the remaining population”. She said it is for that reason that authorities in South Africa are using contraception as a population-control option.

Noting that 76 percent of elephant populations in Africa cross borders, Delsink told Al Jazeera: “Management actions taken at an incorrect scale can have massive consequences and ripple effects that extend far beyond the targeted zone, area or population.

“Therefore, Zimbabwean management choices could have devastating consequences for transient elephants. The situation in Zimbabwe appears to be not so much about elephant numbers per se, but rather about funding the management authority – the elephants are simply a means to this end.”