Animals pay the price of life in Zim

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Animals pay the price of life in Zim

The Times, SASimpiwe Piliso Published:Jul 06, 2008Top wildlife rehabilitation park faces closureZimbabwe's largest wildlife rehabilitation park is under threat of closure as management struggles to find funding and food for its 220 animals.Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage, which is home to injured and orphaned animals, this week barely had enough meat for its 32 lions, seven leopards, a pack of wild dogs and hyaenas.The grain, fruit and other feed for the centre's two black rhinos, duikers, baboons, vervet monkeys, kudus and steenbok have also been depleted."Every day is a struggle to keep this place going. And it's not only food that's in short supply," said Chipangali director Kevin Wilson.Apart from fuel that now costs US2 per litre in Zimbabwe, vehicle parts are also exorbitant. Wilson, who relies on his Toyota Hilux bakkie to fetch animal feed donations from farms, recently replaced four wheel bearings at a cost of R1570 each. The same parts cost about R250 each in South Africa."The list of expenses just goes on and on and on. A lot of Zimbabwean farmers who used to assist Chipangali with food and donations are now living in Zambia and South Africa. .. and have moved on with their lives," said Wilson.There are only about 600 white farmers left in Zimbabwe, down from 4500 eight years ago when President Robert Mugabe mounted a brutal campaign to seize white-owned farms.Last Sunday, shortly after Mugabe was sworn in for a sixth term after an election boycotted by the opposition, several white-owned farms were ransacked and families assaulted.John and Judy Travers, the owners of Imire Safari Ranch, were accosted by suspected war veterans who demanded they shoot three impala for them to eat.Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, said when the couple refused, the war veterans threatened to torch the ranch."They were extremely aggressive and John eventually had no option but to shoot the impala. The invaders left with the impala, saying that Imire was at the top of their list and they were going to take it," said Rodrigues.On Wednesday, some of the men returned and told the Traverses to leave."It is a foregone conclusion that, if the invaders succeed in evicting the Traverses, all the animals will be slaughtered within a very short space of time," said Rodrigues.Economists this week said a loaf of bread costs 150 times more now than it did during the first round of the elections on March 29. Four out of every five Zimbabweans are unemployed and many battle to stave off malnutrition amid chronic shortages of meat, bread and other foodstuffs.Last week, hotel operators told the Sunday Times that tourism figures in Bulawayo had plummeted. Chipangali workers said there had been no "paying visitors" in almost a month."One of our biggest expenses is feeding the carnivores," said Wilson. Each lion is fed 10kg of meat every two days.Wilson said they often receive calls from farmers wanting to donate a dead cow. "But it's not really free," he said, because it costs them dearly to fetch the carcass with their bakkie, which has more than 650000km on the clock.Last Thursday, some of the park's enclosures appeared neglected, with weeds and overgrown shrubs and grass abounding. The electric fence around the lion enclosure did not function.The 35-year-old park gained international recognition for its wildlife studies and captive-breeding programmes. Princess Diana was a patron of the Chipangali Wildlife Trust from 1983 until her death in 1997. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund donated money to Chipangali to erect a children's centre that is used to teach youngsters about nature conservation and the very wildlife that is now being wiped out by poachers.Last November, National Geographic reported that some of Zimbabwe's private game ranches were stripped of game. Using extracts from a report released by the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force, the magazine reported that 90% of animals had been lost since 2000, while the country has seen an estimated 60% of its total wildlife population killed by either poachers or farmers to help ease economic woes.For its study, the task force gathered information from 62 game ranches, 59 of which reported losses, including 75 rare black rhinos and 39 leopards. Other losses included 9500 impalas, about 5000 kudus and 2000 wildebeest.Alongside plummeting wildlife numbers, Zimbabwe has seen massive deforestation and the neglect of national parks. The task force also revealed that the country had 620 private game farms before the land seizures began, but only 14 remain.