Burglary in Zimbabwe's parks: elephants' desperate hunt for water

Storm clouds are gathering over Zimbabwe's largest game reserve, but it is too late as a prolonged drought has killed more than 110 elephants.

Simba Marozwa and other rangers in Hwange National Park have no choice but to cut up the rotting corpses before the poachers discover them. With recent dark clouds promising life-saving rain, rangers may not be able to find all the victims of the drought during their daily hunts.

The 14,600 square kilometer park, which is larger than most of the country, is home to more than 45,000 savannah elephants, which pose an environmental threat. This scene still touches my heart.

The blackened corpses represent a landscape where rain falls more than six weeks late and temperatures routinely reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZimParks) spokeswoman Tinashe Farawo said "the old, the young and the sick" were the worst affected.

Some fell into dry bodies of water, while others spent their last hours under the shade of trees. Most are baby elephants, but others are just the shriveled skin of rotting corpses.

An intact dog is an indication that it died of natural causes. However, in recent years, a strong odor has begun to appear around the elephants.

More than 200 elephants have died during the 2019 drought, but rangers say this will be the end of the summer. Hwange is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Border Conservation Area, which includes parks in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. All border the Okavango and Zambezi river basins. An aerial survey released in 2022 estimated the number of elephants in the region at 227,900.

Tens of thousands of elephants have been killed by poachers and hunters in Africa since the 1970s, but the Kavango-Zambezi Game Reserve is considered a success story, with their numbers increasing significantly. This increased the pressure on Hwange's resources, and climate change became a new threat.

Zimbabwe's 100,000 elephants are more than twice the park's capacity, conservationists say. Zimbabwe National Parks Authority spokesperson Tinashe Farawo said 112 elephants had been confirmed dead since September.

He said the numbers were not surprising given the size of Hwange's elephant population. "We have high temperatures and there is no water. They will definitely sink into the depression and die."

Climate change has led to increased droughts, he added. “It's not just elephants that are affected, other animals are also affected. Elephants are easy to spot because of their size.''

Parabo said park authorities are concerned about elephant overpopulation and habitat destruction. Covered with dry grass, leafless trees and desert-like open spaces, Hwange has 104 solar-powered boreholes in the park to tap into the water table, which is shrinking every year.

But that was not enough, and this year's El Niño phenomenon worsened the drought affecting several countries in southern Africa. In search of water, the elephants have come dangerously close to human settlements on the outskirts of Hwange.

In desperation, they got drunk in the swimming pools of private homes and risked drinking from tanks contaminated with dead animals. Dry reservoirs force elephants and other wildlife to travel long distances in search of food and water. Some crossed into Botswana and other neighboring countries, where many deaths were also reported. On average, an elephant drinks more than 200 liters of water and eats about 140 kg of food per day.