(Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwe is considering culling elephants for the first time since 1988 and using the meat to feed people who have been affected by a crippling drought, a cabinet minister said.
“Zimbabwe has more elephants than we need” and more than its forests can support, Environment Minister Sithembiso Nyoni told lawmakers in Mount Hampden, north of the capital Harare, on Wednesday. Discussions are under way about culling some elephants and providing the dried meat “to some communities that need the protein,” she said.
Zimbabwe has 100,000 elephants, the world’s second-largest population after neighboring Botswana. The minister didn’t specify how many of the pachyderms may be killed.
Adult elephants consume about 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of vegetation a day and usually strip trees of their bark, which kills them. Zimbabwe’s large elephant herd was destroying large tracts of the southern African nation’s natural habitat, to the detriment of humans and other animals, according to Nyoni.
International regulations prevent Zimbabwe from selling its ivory stock, which currently stands at about 130 tons, a situations the government would like to rectify, the minister added.
Zimbabwe has recorded its worst food shortages in four decades this year due to an El Nino-induced drought that has withered essential crops.
--With assistance from Desmond Kumbuka.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
