The gentle giants killed by Zimbabwe's devastating drought: Calves lie dead after more than 160 elephants die due to devastating conditions – and more are feared
Heartbreaking footage has exposed the devastation wrought on Zimbabwe's elephant population amid a brutal drought last year. Experts fear that more deaths will follow.
About 160 of these gentle giants perished within weeks in Hwange National Park, where not a single drop of rain fell between February and November 2023.
In August, animals in the park struggled to find food, with the lack of water also having a significant impact on the abundance of food sources and nutrition.
Some images showed elephants lying in a heap on bone-dry grass, their corpses painted with the feces of opportunistic vultures digging into the rough skin.
Other, even more evocative photos showed elephant carcasses lying in a pool of water after the rains arrived in late November, with a park spokesman claiming many of the beasts died just a few hundred meters from a water source.
Once the rains came, even more elephant calves died after being stuck in the mud and unable to free themselves in their weak, starving state.
The shocking photos highlight the harsh but unbiased cruelty of Mother Nature and expose the brutality of drought conditions where only the strongest survive.
A vulture is seen standing on the head of a young elephant that died of thirst or hunger
The park was littered with carcasses, where a total absence of water destroyed food sources
More than 160 elephants died in the Zimbabwe park within a few weeks
Other, even more evocative photos showed elephant carcasses lying in a pool of water after the rains arrived in December, with a park spokesman claiming many of the beasts died within 100 meters of a water source.
In this photo provided by IFAW, an elephant lies dead yards from a waterhole in Hwange National Park, Tuesday, December 5, 2023
The rotting carcasses are an eerie sign of what wildlife authorities and conservation groups say is the impact of climate change and the El Niño weather phenomenon.
Trevor Lane, head of the conservation group Bhejane Trust, described in a statement late last year the terrible conditions facing the park's animal populations.
'The past three months have been quite a horrific sight to watch, with elephants too weak to continue, falling over and waiting to die, calves losing their mothers and running around doomed, and the terrible smell of death emanating from hung over the park.
'We will never know how many died when we found carcasses deep in the bush, but probably several hundred. Heat and food stress were the killer!
'This is nature at work, with survival of the fittest. The stoppage of rain in February meant that grass growth had not reached full potential, meaning less grass nutrition was available, and the trees lost their leaves in winter,” he explained.
'What was available dried up, and combined with the struggle to obtain and compete for water, this all led to a very stressful situation, resulting in many deaths.
'With the available resources, little could be done to prevent this. Nature can be very harsh!' he concluded.
Another conservationist told us The guard that at one point more than 1,800 elephants attempted to drink from a single water source.
“It was horrible to see orphaned calves waiting aimlessly for death, and it was horrible to drive around and see and smell dead elephants,” they said.
Authorities warned that more could die as forecasts point to scarcity of rain and increasing heat in parts of the southern African country, including the national park hit by the El Nino weather phenomenon.
Park workers desperately try to free a weak elephant calf that was stuck in the mud after the rain came
An elephant drinks from a scarce water source while one of the herd's calves lies dead in the background
A herd of elephants stands together in the middle of the Zimbabwean bush, desperate for water
Lane also warned that similar drought conditions could occur in 2024.
Last year, a weather system called 'El Niño' caused flooding in East Africa, but had the opposite effect in the south of the continent.
“We are aware that we may have an El Niño and a major drought in 2024,” he said.
'We'll see what we can do to mitigate that, but it will just be a matter of survival of the fittest. If there is another drought, we will have to experience the same thing again.'
In a desperate bid to prevent a repeat of last year's terrible wave of deaths, Hwange park workers are drilling boreholes into the cracked earth and installing solar-powered pumps.
This aims to provide water for as long as possible during the drought, and also serves to spread the elephants over a wider area, reducing competition for a small number of watering holes.
The rainy season in Zimbabwe once reliably started in October and continued until March. It has become erratic in recent years and conservationists have noticed longer, more severe dry spells, which many have attributed to climate change.
Elephants are an important ally in the fight against climate change through the ecosystem, spreading vegetation over long distances through dung containing plant seeds, conservationists said.
The animals ensure that forests can spread, regenerate and flourish. Trees suck planet-warming carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“They play a much bigger role than humans in reforestation,” Lane said.
“That's one of the reasons we're fighting to keep elephants alive.”