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Elephants in distress
Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF)
October 30, 2004

We desperately need to track down the affected elephants, tranquilize them and remove the snares but the tranquilizer, M99 is very expensive and we need a large quantity of it. If anyone is able to assist us with funds to enable us to purchase this drug, we would be extremely grateful.

I have recently returned from a trip to Kariba where I saw several elephants that had been unfortunate enough to wander into wire snares in Bumi Hills and Mapongola Hills. With the decline of the economy, more and more snares are being laid to capture animals for food and poaching is on the increase because the locals are starving and will do anything to obtain food. The snares are probably not intended for the elephants but they are causing great suffering and painful lingering deaths amongst these majestic lumbering beasts.

One can only imagine the amount of pain an elephant endures when a wire snare becomes embedded in its leg and infection and swelling sets in, as can be seen in some of the photos attached.

Some elephants have managed to remove a snare from their leg but the damage caused to the leg muscle has resulted in a deformity where one leg will always be much thinner than the others (see photos)

Many elephants have managed to get their trunks caught in snares and the wire remains wrapped tightly around the trunk, cutting off the blood supply until the portion of the trunk below the snare drops off. An elephant with a shortened trunk may not seem to be a serious problem but this is actually the most tragic snare wound of all because an elephant uses the tip of his trunk the same way we use our hands. He uses it to pull clumps of grass out of the ground and he then shakes all the sand off it before putting it in his mouth and eating it. An elephant without a trunk tip can't do this. He uses his foot to dig the clump of grass up and then by wedging the grass between his short trunk and his leg, he somehow manages to eat it but he eats the sand at the same time because he can't shake it off. Gradually, over a period of time, his molars wear down from all the sand he has been chewing until eventually, he can't eat at all and he dies a lingering agonizing death of starvation.

This problem is obviously not confined to the Kariba area because people all over Zimbabwe are starving and snares are being laid wherever wildlife is present. The Zimbabwean government is pushing to start culling elephants because they believe there are too many. We are concerned that all the elephants with shortened trunks will have a reduced life span and if they start culling the elephants, between the shortened life spans and the culling, we may end up without any at all.

I was told during my visit to Kariba that the last 3 lions remaining in the Fothergill area, have now been wiped out by poachers. The last picture attached is a lion that was caught in a snare and beheaded.

There is a team of dedicated people currently scouring the Bumi and Mapongola Hills areas and removing snares from the bush but they need funds to do the job properly.

We desperately need to track down the affected elephants, tranquilize them and remove the snares but the tranquilizer, M99 is very expensive and we need a large quantity of it. If anyone is able to assist us with funds to enable us to purchase this drug, we would be extremely grateful.

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