Zimbabwe's Woes Are Bringing Grief To Its Wildlife, Too

Authors:

Wines, M. The New York Times

Document Type:

Media

Citation:

Wines, M. (2003, October 25). Zimbabwe's Woes Are Bringing Grief To Its Wildlife, Too. The New York Times. [Online]. Available: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E2D71231F936A15753C1A9659C8B63 [2003, October 25].

Year Published:

2003

Type Work:

Newspaper Article

Availability:

Online

Language:

English

Url:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E2D71231F936A15753C1A9659C8B63

Bushmeat Asian Type:

Bushmeat

Keywords:

Zimbabwe; bushmeat; endangered; settlers; parks

Abstract:

Once this 5,700-square-mile expanse of wilderness, Zimbabwe's largest, was one of Africa's grandest showcases of wild animals. These days, it is exhibit A in the unfolding story of their destruction. On a recent steamy morning, perhaps 60 elephants staged a scrum at the Nyamandlovu watering hole here, jockeying frantically to get a drink of water -- not from the watering hole, a porridge of mud and flopping, dying fish, but from a trickling pipe at the hole's edge. During Hwange's long, bone-dry winter, more than two dozen pumps supply almost all the water to thousands of animals. But Zimbabwe's government had neither enough fuel to run them nor spare parts to repair the many that were broken. The scene was but a small element in what Colin Gillies, a wildlife expert with a private group here, calls ''an unholy slaughter'' of one of southern Africa's most varied stocks of wildlife. It is the product of three years of economic collapse, corruption and decaying civil order...