JOHANNESBURG (dpa) – Southern African conservationists are counting on the memory of elephants to bring success to the region’s biggest cross-border wildlife translocation project.
Under “Operation Ark”, 1,000 pachyderms from South Africa’s wildlife mecca, the Kruger National Park, are to be moved to new habitats across the border into Mozambique and Zimbabwe in the north.The elephant translocation is the first major initiative under an international agreement on a transfrontier park which has been billed as a significant window of opportunity in conservation, economic and social areas for the region.The 35,000-square-kilometre Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou Transfrontier Park is expected to lead to the development of a larger transfrontier conservation area spanning some 99,000 square kilometres.The operation kicked off this week as a herd of seven drowsy elephants – including two infant calves – were trucked across South Africa’s north eastern border to Mozambique’s Coutada 16 wildlife area some 50 kilometres away.South Africa’s environmental and tourism affairs minister Valli Moosa has described the operation as “a huge undertaking”. “The only person that has come close to doing something like this is Mr Noah,” he quipped.In the coming weeks, wildlife handlers will dart 30 more of the large beasts destined for a fresh start at Coutada 16 which will ultimately take delivery of the bulk of the animals.Translocation operations will halt as the height of the region’s harsh summer nears, but will peak in the winter months in June and July next year when cooler weather prevails.Operation Ark will effectively re-introduce the species in the once war-torn east African country and its western neighbour Zimbabwe over the next three years.Experts believe the number of remaining elephants have dwindled to just one or two isolated groups at most since mass pachyderm migration from the area in the early 1900s and decades of hunting and illegal poaching.“The optimum elephant population in the Kruger Park is 8,000. If the surplus elephants are moved, they are spared culling, ” said Professor Willem van Riet, the project’s technical advisor.Conservationists say they will go to great lengths to ensure that elephant families are not split and that calves are not orphaned during the operation.“It is in the best interest of the elephants not to see people during his operation. We release them before they need to be fed to eliminate the need for contacts with humans,” according to van Riet.Some of the animals will be fitted with satellite collars to enable researchers to access their movements and progress.Electric fencing between conservation sites is expected to ensure that the do not try to return to the Kruger Park in the months following their relocation.“Except for a few bulls, we dont expect the area’s new elephant population to try very hard to return. Elephants have such excellent memories they may well easily recognise the land they once roamed,” van Riet told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.Regional authorities say they envision a transfrontier area without fences giving foreign tourists and animals alike unhindered movement between the three countries.
