Zimbabwe selling elephants cheap to China
By Erin Conway-Smith, GlobalPost
Posted: 02/05/2013 08:01:03 AM PST
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Over and over again, the baby elephant scrapes
its skin against the metal bars of a zoo in northern China, appearing
agitated and distressed.
Not long ago this elephant lived with its family herd in the wilds of Hwange
National Park, the largest reserve in Zimbabwe. Then it was caught, and
along with three other young elephants, flown halfway around the world.
At Taiyuan Zoo, where Chinese animal lovers filmed the plight of the little
lone elephant behind bars, another that came from Zimbabwe died soon after
its long and difficult journey. The elephants arrived in late November,
during a winter of record cold temperatures.
Now animal rights groups in Zimbabwe are fighting to stop more of their
country’s baby elephants from being taken from the wild and sold to zoos in
China, which pay handsomely for these animals from Zimbabwe’s cash-strapped
national parks.
China and Zimbabwe have close political and economic ties, with trade
between them reaching more than $800 million last year. There is no shortage
of elephants in southernAfrica and there is demand in China, but animal
rights groups argue it’s inhumane to take young animals from the wild and
send them on difficult journeys to overseas zoos where they are kept — often
in dire conditions.
Dave Neale, director of animal welfare for the Animals Asia Foundation, said
that trade in wild elephants caught and sold by Zimbabwe to China is legal
under CITES, the international authority that regulates trade in wildlife.
But it is “far from ethical,” he said.
Elephant calves form close bonds with their mothers and other female
relatives, Neale explained, and removing a young elephant from its herd in
the wild to captivity is devastating. Many of the calves die, he added.
“From a moral standpoint, removing a highly intelligent, social animal from
its family group and wild habitat to be shipped to another country and
placed inside a concrete cell cannot be justified,” Neale said. “This trade
in wild-caught elephants is morally repugnant and should stop immediately.”
After news of the young African elephant’s death at Taiyuan Zoo, five other
3- and 4-year-old elephants slated to be sent to China were returned to the
wild following weeks of pressure from the Zimbabwe National SPCA. While
animal lovers cheered this success, by that point it was impossible for the
young elephants’ family herds to be located.
And while that shipment was stopped, animal rights groups say there are
reports of four more baby elephants soon to be exported to China.
Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, has been
working to draw attention to the situation, and fears this won’t be the end.
He said that Chinese zoos have paid for a total of eight elephants, and when
public attention lessens, the rest of the order will be shipped.
“When everybody cools down, these animals are going to go,” Rodrigues said.
He said that Zimbabwe’s national parks badly need the money — they have been
unable to pay the wages of employees the past few months.
Caroline Washaya-Moyo, spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife
Management Authority, the government agency that runs the country’s national
parks, couldn’t be reached by phone despite repeated attempts, and didn’t
respond to emails requesting an interview.
Ed Lanca, chairman of the Zimbabwe National SPCA, said this moneymaking
venture by Zimbabwe’s national parks “is basically kidnapping.”
“It’s unacceptable that a baby elephant is taken from its mother and sent to
a foreign country with substandard conditions,” he said.
Lanca said the Zimbabwe National SPCA, which is barely surviving on limited
private donor funding, has too few resources to help monitor the exports of
elephants. His organization only has two animal welfare inspectors for the
entire country, and their last truck capable of making out-of-town trips
recently broke down.
“If another export happens, we can’t assist because I don’t have the means
to intervene,” he said. “It’s dire.”