ZIMBABWE TO SELL WILD ANIMALS TO SAVE THEM FROM DROUGHT

Harare. Zimbabwe’s announcement that it was selling off live wild animals at nature reserves to save them from a raging drought shocked the world, but one man was not surprised.
Mr Jonny Rodrigues has been in the trenches for nearly two decades fighting to save Zimbabwe’s wildlife heritage and he believes President Robert Mugabe’s government was groping in the dark when it comes to wildlife conservation.
He is the Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce (ZCT) chairperson and one of the most qualified people locally to talk about the troubled country’s controversial wildlife policies that routinely offend animal activists around the world because of the government’s perceived cruelty to wildlife.
Mr Rodrigues said the government was using the drought as a cover up for its failure to manage the country’s nature reserves, citing the fact that the El-Nino induced dry spell did not only affect Zimbabwe, but the entire region.
“I am disgusted and disappointed by the decision to sell wild animals,” he said.
“This sheds a bad light on the way the authorities treat their animals.”
The veteran conservationist said the authorities had enough time to prepare for the drought as warnings about the poor rainfall that characterised the just-ended rainy season were known to the authorities.
He said the fact that Zimbabwe’s neighbours had not resorted to the same desperate measures was telling.
“Why didn’t they ensure that they had stored food for the animals ahead of time when they know that Zimbabwe suffers from droughts periodically?” he posed. “It indicates that Zimbabwe is led by a bunch of greedy, corrupt people and this is a clear example of mismanagement. “So many countries, including South Africa and the whole southern region do not sell their animals when there is a drought, so Zimbabwe’s actions are questionable,” Mr Rodrigues added.
(NMG)