Zimbabwe’s Plan to Export Wild Elephants: The Full Audio Interviews

2015-04-02 - Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

Over the last few months, there have been ongoing and alarming reports about a group of elephant calves held captive in enclosures in the Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe’s flagship wilderness area.Inside sources, people on the ground in the park, have said that these animals were snatched from their wild herds, rounded up in a facility, and are now being readied for export to unconfirmed destinations around the world.

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Zimbabwe: More Poachers Jailed As Lawyers Probe "Torture" Claims

2013-11-01 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

Two more men accused of poaching elephants in Zimbabwe were this week handed jail sentences, amid an ongoing crackdown that has followed the poisoning of dozens of elephants in the Hwange National Park. Caroline Washaya-Moyo, the spokesperson for Zimbabwe´s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks), on Wednesday welcomed the sentence, saying such jail terms are a ´deterrent´ to would-be poachers.

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Elephants kill anti-poaching ranger

2013-10-24 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

Three elephants have trampled a park ranger to death during an anti-poaching patrol in a Zimbabwe nature reserve where more than 102 of the animals have been poisoned with cyanide in past weeks. The veteran ranger was charged by the elephants when separated from colleagues in the remote Hwange National Park. The National Parks Department said Lovemore Maphosa, 61, was out on a 10-day foot patrol.

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Zimbabwe man jailed for 15 years for poisoning elephants

2013-10-17 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

A Zimbabwe court on Wednesday sentenced a poacher to more than 15 years in prison for poisoning and killing elephants with cyanide, the fourth such conviction in the country in a month. The court in the western town of Hwange also found Akim Masuku, 26, guilty of illegal possession of ivory, handing down a total jail term of 15-and-a-half years, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority said in a statement.

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Zimbabwe: Poisoned Elephant Toll Reaches 102, Officials

2013-10-15 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

WILDLIFE authorities said Tuesday they had found another 11 carcasses of elephants killed by cyanide poisoning, bringing to 102 the number of pachyderms poisoned for their tusks in a continuing wildlife crisis. Authorities arrested two suspected poachers at a village outside Hwange National Park where a small quantity of cyanide was recovered.

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Zimbabwe: Govt Urged to Enact Tougher Poaching Penalties After Mass Elephant Poisoning

2013-09-08 - Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

The deliberate poisoning of more than 40 elephants in the Hwange National Park has sparked outcry across the world, with a growing chorus of voices demanding that stricter poaching penalties be implemented. The elephants died after members of a suspected poaching syndicate laced salt with the toxic chemical cyanide and distributed the salt in a drinking pool used by elephants in Hwange. The carcasses of the animals were discovered late last month after park rangers heard gunshots within the park...

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Elephants go thirsty

2012-08-29 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

Presidential elephants and other wild animals in the Hwange Safari Lodge are likely to die from thirst as most of the drinking pans have run out of water. Wildlife conservationists have accused Hwange Safari lodge management of neglecting the watering pans in the area where the special presidential herd roams.

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Elephants leave trail of destruction in Tsholotsho

2009-02-23 - Hwange, Zimbabwe. Fortunate Muzarabani

MARAUDING elephants have left a trail of destruction on what promised to be a bumper harvest for villagers in c, it has been learnt. Villagers who spoke to Sunday News last Monday indicated that the worst destruction of crops was witnessed in Bhayebaye, Masuswini, Mlagisa, Somkhaya and other surrounding villages in Ward 4 under Chief Mathupula.

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Are elephants thugs or guardians of the water hole?

2008-12-18 - Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Nora Schultz

Are elephants the bullies of the national parks? Should they be culled to give other creatures a look-in at the water hole? These are questions that were asked recently when figures showed that, as some elephant populations have increased due to reduced poaching and creation of artificial water holes, other herbivore species have declined. But when Marion Valeix, then at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France, set out to discover if the elephants of Hwange Nati...

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Zimbabwe: Rampaging Elephants Destroying Crops

2008-04-15 - Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

Marauding elephants that escaped from the Hwange National Park, an animal sanctuary in rural southwestern Zimbabwe, are destroying any hopes among peasant farmers of a moderately successful harvest. Arid climatic conditions are expected to blight agricultural production in the southwest this year, according to a recent forecast by the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), while Zimbabwe's political and economic turmoil is also affecting both food production and food security. Elephants ...

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Zimbabwe President"s elephants suffer

2006-09-28 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe's wildlife continues to suffer terrible atrocities. Snaring is reported to be rife, with the country's larger, stronger animals (such as the elephant) sometimes managing to break free of these deadly wire traps, and later seen with hideous wire injuries. Conservationists do what they can, destroying snares, immobilising and treating suffering animals, arresting poachers and pushing for harsher penalties for their criminal acts.

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Heavy rains save dying animals in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe

2005-12-27 - Hwange, Zimbabwe.

Life-giving rains have brought temporary relief to the thirst-crazed animals of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe after a fierce drought which left the park littered with shrunken, rotting corpses. Pinetown conservationist John Davison, who has just returned from the park, said many dams and water pans were full to the brim again after nearly 230 mm of rain fell in less than a month.

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Tourists flee park elephants slaughter in Zimbabwe, "Famine relief" may conceal poaching ring backed by the Mugabe regime

2005-03-23 - Hwange, Zimbabwe. Christopher Munnion

Horrified tourists have fled from Hwange national park, Zimbabwe's largest game reserve, after witnessing the "wholesale slaughter" of animals, part of what conservation groups fear is an officially sanctioned poaching ring.

A collection of elephant tusks
‘Indications are that the country's game is being plundered’

Operation Nyama, or "Operation Meat", is ostensibly a campaign to feed starving villagers in northern Matabeleland.

But indep...

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24 years on Internet!

ELEPHANT NEWS was created on 2001 in Munich, and relaunched in Phnom Penh in 2020, with almost 8 000 links to news articles about elephants on the Internet. A number of articles now also have a cross reference to the elephant database, either for individuals elephants and/or to an article about the location holding