Kruger National Park Plans Large-Scale Elephant Slaughter

Kruger National Park in South Africa has proposed killing 6,500 elephants to reduce the country's elephant population by half because it inaccurately claims that elephants pose a risk to biodiversity. Terrified elephants will be herded into groups with helicopters while gunners on the ground and in the air open fire. Elephants are capable of communicating over long distances, and their death screams will be heard by other elephants who are more than a mile away. The fear, panic, and distress caused by these mass killing operations will cause the survivors to spend the remainder of their lives in fear every time they hear a helicopter.

South African officials currently view elephants not as remarkably intelligent individuals who form their own societies, share calf-rearing responsibilities, develop wisdom as they age, and express a range of emotions including joy and grief but rather as nuisances and commodities to be slaughtered, hacked up, skinned, canned, carved, and sold bit by bit. Orphaned calves, who are regarded as a mere byproduct, are left with lifelong emotional scars from witnessing the violent executions of their families. Hundreds of these traumatized infants have ended up in zoos and circuses around the world, where they are beaten, chained, confined, and isolated and die prematurely.

Ecotourism plays an important role in the South African economy. A large-scale massacre of elephants will undoubtedly have a devastating impact on this important source of revenue.

Respected scientists have condemned the proposed elephant kill. There is no evidence that elephants pose an imminent risk to biodiversity. Reducing the elephant population by half is arbitrary, reflects outdated wildlife management principles, and is scientifically unsound. Please urge South Africa to, instead of converting the park into a killing field, implement the humane, sensible suggestions advocated by scientists and reported by Care for the Wild International, including the following:

• Reduce the number of artificially created watering holes—this would divert elephants to previously underutilized areas.
• Expand protected elephant habitats by linking them to adjacent areas, such as Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, and develop migration corridors to other regions.
• Develop community-based wildlife conservation programs outside the existing protected areas to increase the benefits of tourism to nearby rural areas.
• Protect vulnerable and valuable areas by erecting and maintaining fences and implementing other nonlethal deterrents.
• Administer contraception, which is an affordable method involving minimal intervention that can reduce the number of elephants within a large population.

Contact

Her Excellency Barbara Joyce Masekela
Ambassador of South Africa
Embassy of South Africa
3051 Massachusetts Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
202-232-4400
202-265-1607 (fax)
ambassador@saembassy.org

Even though the proposed elephant massacre has generated a worldwide outcry, the zoo community has remained strangely silent. If zoos truly foster respect for wildlife, as they purport to do, they should be leading the charge to prevent this tragedy. Please contact your local zoo officials and ask them to do the following:

• Speak out publicly against the proposed killing of African elephants at Kruger National Park.
• Notify their zoo's members about the situation and ask them to write to South African officials, urging them to oppose the kill.
• Pledge not to obtain any orphaned calves if the kill takes place, thus removing South Africa's financial incentive to slaughter adult elephants.