Zimbabwe moves rhinos to prevent poaching

Zimbabwe moves rhinos to prevent poaching

• Lion kills Japanese diplomat in Zim

• Villagers barbecue ravenous lion

• New book claims Great Zimbabwe built by Indonesians

• Zimbabwe overrun with elephants

• Dutch police intercept Zimbabwe ivory cargo

• Zim's elephant numbers inflated

• Elephants erase dinasaur footprints

• Spirit medium demands $45 billion from game farmer

• Sulphuric acid spills into Mtshabezi river

• Robbers strike Bulawayo Museum

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S wildlife authority has moved more than 200 endangered black rhinos from a farm near its western border with Botswana to prevent poaching.

Zimbabwe is home to some of Africa's largest game reserves, but local conservationists say many species are at risk from rampant poaching by people struggling with hunger and rising poverty. Cross-border trophy hunters are also taking a toll.

Zimbabwe's Parks and Wildlife Management Authority says it has translocated over 200 black rhinos from a game farm in southwestern Matabeleland province to some protected conservancies in the area.

It said the animals would eventually be moved to the larger Gonarezhou National Park in the country's southeast.

The decision to move the rhinos from the border areas came after the arrest of a poacher in Botswana who was selling a rhino horn from an animal killed in Zimbabwe and the discovery of two injured rhinos entangled in snare wires, it said.

Zimbabwe has an estimated 800 black rhinos left after poachers killed more than 1,500 in the 1980s.

Rampant poaching drove black rhino numbers across Africa down to about 2,400 in the mid-1990s from an estimated 65,000 just two decades before. Poachers typically hack off the horns and leave the carcasses.

The animals have been on the rebound since and now number close to 3,600 but are still regarded as endangered.

National parks officials were not immediately available comment on the report.

But the permanent secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Margaret Sangarwe, said the government had issued a directive for the endangered animals to be moved fast.

"There is urgent need to place them in areas where they can easily be monitored and are secured," she said.
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com