Namibia Separates More Than 700 Wild Creatures, Including Elephants and Hippos, to Battle Food Insecurity in Serious Dry Spell

The Namibian government has prepared a separating plan of something like 700 wild creatures including elephants, zebras, and hippos to address the deficiency of precipitation.

These actions aim to provide income for those suffering from starvation.

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourists has already said that 83 elephants, 30 hippos, 60 buffalo, 50 impalas, 100 blue wildebeest, and 300 zebras will be culled from the national parks and communal areas with sustainable wildlife populations. Professional hunters will do the culling.

The program is aimed at reducing the effects of the drought that is hitting Namibia and at the same time diminishing the pressure on the water resources by controlling the wildlife population in

Deserted spaces where grazing and water are constrained. Additionally, the culling engages in the approach of minimizing wildlife-human conflicts, especially concerning elephants which are monkeys that often invade human settlements to find edible shrubs and water during droughts.

Namibia put a state of emergency in place in May with about 1.4 million people which is half of the population facing high levels of acute food insecurity. The meat from the culled animals will be allocated to those most affected, especially in the rural areas.

The ministry explained that the Southern African region, which is the habitat of more than 200,000 elephants, is experiencing severe drought, leading to the death of hundreds of animals due to water supply depletion. Up to the moment, More than 150 animals have been killed which caused the release of more than 125,000 pounds of meat used for distribution.

“We are committed to assisting the

country during this critical time of need,” the ministry stated.

Namibia, in company with the rest of the southern African nations, is dealing with a critical drought resulting from the El Nino phenomenon and climate change that has brought about a decrease in the amount of rainfall and therefore left millions of people at risk of hunger.