Zimbabwes Solution Sell the Animals

Zimbabwe's Solution Sell the Animals Photo Via: http://www.newsx.com Nowadays, it seems like there are endless organizations meant to help others, whether they’re geared towards the homeless, the malnourished, the sick, the disabled or even those that don’t have a voice for themselves. So isn’t it about time that good deeds were done without calling for the help of an organization? Zimbabwe, who is recently suffering from a devastating drought, decided to take action on its own, albeit in a controversial way. Zimbabwe has reached out to local farmers as well as private game rangers and asked them to buy wild animals to take out of the country and save them, as well as the land’s plants, from starvation. This “destocking” of the national game reserves is a way for the country to raise some money while simultaneously saving what little life is left in the land. According to Caroline Washaya, a park and wildlife authority spokeswoman, “in the light of the drought” these individuals have been reached out to and implored to purchase these wild animals. This is at the very least a promising start for Zimbabwe as it attempts to overcome such a terrible drought. However, it’s unclear how big of a task this animal selling will be, as there are, as of yet, no details of species or the number of species/animals that are being put up for sale. And not only this, but the idea of selling animals off their land is certainly one that’s going to spark controversy, especially since animals are unable to speak for themselves and this idea brings to question some matters of morality to make animal rights activists. If they aren’t already, it’s only a matter of time before animal rights organizations begin stepping in though whether it will be for better or for worse is still up to interpretation. But if you look at Zimbabwe’s past, the country has undergone a continuous battle with reducing the number of animals on its land, specifically the number of elephants. Not only that, but the country is running extremely low on funds as well. So really, this appears to be a solution that solves both of their problems. Elephants in the country have populations that double the carrying capacity of the country’s parks, which in turn becomes a survival hazard for the animals as well. pexels.com The country is so desperate that it’s even put an ad in state newspapers asking “members of the public with the capacity to acquire and manage wildlife” to reach out and offer to buy some of these animals. And this isn’t the first time this has been done either. In the past few years, Zimbabwe has actually exported their elephants out to other countries, namely China, in return for funds and the decrease in the ever-growing elephant population. And as for the human population, things don’t fare any better. Most rural areas of the country are now in a state of disaster, as declared by President Robert Mugabe in February of this year, and about one-fourth of the population is in desperate need of food. And to top it all off, this drought has made the already strained national parks even more stressed, as they must deal with a population excess in addition to the food and water crisis. At this point, in addition to the selling of more wild animals such as elephants, the country is completely relying on donations, especially the parks authorities. They ask any humanitarians or simply those with a little extra cash or time to spare any water they can to help out the wildlife, in addition to fighting off the growing problem parks face with poachers by setting up patrols of volunteers. So while the past animal exportation to China snagged the attention of international animal rights activists, and the current plans will probably do the same, the country’s ideas are completely warranted, and they’re desperate for a plan of action. The bottom line: they don’t have time to wait around and see what happens. And local conservationists within the country and around the world are backing the Zimbabwe government plans to sell these animals, as it appears to be the best plan (and probably only plan) at the moment. According to Jerry Gotora, a conservationist and the past chairman of the parks department, “Zimbabwe is facing one of its worst droughts ever, even worse than 1992 when thousands of wildlife were decimated … All our national parks are in the driest regions and the biggest question as we experience this drought is ‘who is going to feed the wildlife and who is going to give them water?’” These are serious problems being faced across the world and the moral ambiguity of their solution is going to be a cause for conversation in parts of the world that aren’t experiencing this devastating event first-hand. iran-daily.com So what it really comes down to is what it takes for Zimbabwe to survive this drought, and if the answer is to sell their animals to the highest bidder, we may not have much of a choice in the matter.