Zimbabwe: At least 100 elephants die due to lack of water

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: PIERRE VERNAY / BIOSPHOTO / BIOSPHOTO VIA AFP 21:37 p.m., December 11, 2023

At least 100 elephants have died due to lack of water in Zimbabwe's largest national park, an animal rights group said on Monday. "The prolongation of the dry season has dried up water points that were once abundant in mud puddles" in Hwange National Park, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said in a statement. "At least 100 elephants have been declared dead due to the lack of water," he added.

More than 200 elephants died in Zimbabwe in 2019

Hwange National Park covers an area of 14,600 km2 and is home to some 45,000 elephants. "The park is equipped with 104 solar-powered boreholes, which management says are not sufficient to cope with the extreme temperatures that dry up water points and force wildlife to travel long distances to find water and food," IFAW adds. Last September, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority reported that "many animals" had left the national park to seek water and food in neighbouring Botswana.

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The resulting animal deaths "must be seen as a symptom of the complex and deep-seated problems that threaten the conservation of the region's natural resources, exacerbated by climate change," said Phillip Kuvawoga, an IFAW expert. In 2019, more than 200 elephants died in Zimbabwe, according to IFAW, which warns of this "recurring phenomenon". Zimbabwe is home to some 100,000 elephants, the second-largest population of pachyderms in the world, and twice as many as the theoretical capacity of its parks, according to conservationists.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has classified Southern Africa as a region particularly at risk from extreme heat and reduced rainfall caused by global warming.