Charity is accused of ‘dumping 263 elephants in Zambian park’ and letting them ‘attack crops and kill people’ after nine villagers are trampled to death: ‘Imagine if we dumped hyenas in London and they killed people?’
A charity is accused of dumping 263 elephants in a park in Zambia and allowing them to kill people and cause millions of dollars in damage to farmers’ crops.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was accused of implementing “an imperial model of conservation” after it helped bring the elephant parade from Liwonde National Park in Malawi to Kasungu National Park, also in Malawi, which borders Zambia. , in July 2022.
But since then, the enormous animals have killed at least nine people around the park and caused an estimated $3 million in crop damage by eating or trampling them, according to a local NGO.
Mike Labuschagne, former IFAW law enforcement officer in Kasungu, shared FT that IFAW should pay compensation to those affected by the move.
‘If an African NGO released 263 hyenas on the outskirts of… London and eighteen months later nine people had been killed by those hyenas. What do you think the reaction would be?’ he said.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was accused of implementing ‘an imperial model of conservation’
The transfer program took place in July 2022
IFAW is one of the largest animal protection NGOs in the world
IFAW is one of the world’s largest animal conservation NGOs, spending $127 million on conservation projects last year alone, after raising money from the EU, USAID and the Disney Conservation Fund.
IFAW’s elephant transfer, believed to be one of the largest of its kind, was part of a project to alleviate the environmental pressures facing Liwonde National Park.
Video of the transfer shows elephants in Liwonde being given sedatives before being taken to Kasungu in huge trucks.
During the transfer programme, Kasungu also welcomed 80 buffalos, 128 impalas, 33 sables, 81 warthogs and 109 waterbucks from Liwonde.
But the elephants, which each need to eat up to 150kg of food a day and can weigh up to seven tonnes, rampaged through the region, destroying homes and grain warehouses in search of food, locals told the FT.
Abraham Phiri told the newspaper that his father Andrew, a farmer in his 60s, was trampled by a large parade of elephants while working his land close to Zambia’s border with Malawi.
‘He was old and couldn’t run well. He fell and was trampled to death,” he said, adding that when he called authorities, all they shouted was a coffin.
Elephants must eat up to 150 kg of food per day and can weigh up to seven tons (File image)
locals are forced to stay up all day and bang pots and pans or set off fireworks, to scare off the elephants and thus protect their land (File image)
Another farmer, Levison Banda, said income from his farm plummeted after elephants started invading his field.
“These animals come from Malawi, but they cause problems in Zambia,” he said.
Neither the government of Malawi nor Zambia will pay compensation for elephant attacks, but will be happy to tout the benefits of elephant relocation for tourism in the region.
Locals are also terrified of sending their children to school or going to the toilet in the dark for fear of being trampled.
As a result, local residents are forced to stay up all day and bang pots and pans or set off fireworks, to scare off the elephants and thus protect their land.
But they may soon have to resort to more extreme measures, with one farmer warning: ‘If no one does something, there will be a war between humans and animals.’
An IFAW spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘IFAW has “not dumped 263 elephants” in Kasungu National Park. The government of Malawi decided to move elephants from one park that was full to another park where there was space.
‘This was a government decision and determined by scientific arguments. IFAW’s role was to support with financial resources and expertise from a conservation perspective, with Malawian staff on the ground providing expertise.’
