Longer droughts in Zimbabwe take a toll on wildlife

(23 Nov 2023)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe - 28 October 2023
1. Pan sunrise to river at the Gonarezhou National Park
2. Various of baboons leaving waterhole
3. Wide of man counting baboons from view deck
4. Wide of man writing

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Harare, Zimbabwe - 09 November 2023
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority:
"The issue of climate change needs to be taken seriously, because the irregular patterns and the shifting of seasons. For example, we are almost in mid-November. We are yet to receive the, the season is yet to start. So these things definitely affect our animals because we could see that the animals have been moving long distances in search of water. Whilst they are moving they would be, of course, getting into communities, clashing with with with the villagers. In some cases it is fatal."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe - 28 October 2023
6. Various of buck in the bush

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Harare, Zimbabwe - 09 November 2023
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority:
"This period especially up until the onset of the rainy season. It means there's less water in the park and less food. So the animals, naturally they move. But as soon as the rains come, the animals, obviously they'll get more food and it means the movements also into communities will be less, minimising the the clashes between communities into animals."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe - 28 October 2023
8. Wide of women with clipboard

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Harare, Zimbabwe - 09 October 2023
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Anne-Marie Marais, wildlife census participant:
"It is quite the experience because we've never done this before. And they gave us Salima, Samalema Gorge to count. We set in the hide. And they was quite a bit of birds because it's a very rocky area. So beautiful. Beautiful. Very. Quite a few birds. We only saw klipspringer bokkie (antelope) , that's all."
9. Wide of tortoise
10. Zoom in to Southern African Hornbill
STORYLINE:
In a remote southeastern corner of Zimbabwe, about 140 volunteers slept in shifts through a 24-hour annual wildlife census - a valuable indicator of the status of the southern African nation's wildlife resources during a worrying regional drought.

To everyone's relief, the rains had come and the grasslands were looking green again in Gonarezhou National Park, whose name means “place of elephants."

But the split and shattered trunks of the massive baobab trees and the damage to the umbrella-like acacia trees, the savanna's shade providers, are evidence of desperate elephants searching for food and water in the 5,000-square-kilometer (1,900-square-mile) park.

In other reserves in wildlife-rich Zimbabwe, animals have suffered even more as climate change-induced drought conditions take their toll.

The animals in Gonarezhou are "the fortunate ones,” said Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. In his office in the capital, Harare, he has received regular reports of anguish this year from national parks.

“It’s normal for animals to die, but now they are dying young," he said. "They starve, they die. They get stuck in the mud desperately looking for water and they die. It’s heartbreaking.”
Many are taking that option, Farawo said.
And across Zimbabwe, there is increased conflict between humans and animals.
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