http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...-trophy-hunters.html


Zimbabwe plans to sell young elephants – to compensate for funds lost from ban on trophy hunters


Zimbabwe has announced that it plans to sell more baby elephants to raise funds for its national park - three months after it shipped 36 of the animals to the UAE


By Peta Thornycroft, Johannesburg3:59PM GMT 25 Mar 2015



Zimbabwe hopes to sell about 50 tamed, juvenile elephants to foreign zoos to fund its national park, to compensate for the end of income from American hunters after the US banned the import of wildlife trophies.
Most American hunters, banned since last year from taking Zimbabwe trophies home with them, are now shooting elephants in South Africa. Safari operators and Zimbabwe's professional hunters say the ban has crippled their industry.
Saviour Kasukawere, Zimbabwe’s environment minister, said he hopes to export about 50 young elephants which will be tamed before they will are exported.
And he admitted that the sale of the elephants would be controversial. In December Pierce Brosnan, a long-standing campaigner for animal rights, criticised the "gruesome" announcement that 36 baby elephants had been taken from their mothers and were awaiting shipment "to the UAE and possibly China".
That deal was never confirmed, and Mr Kasukawere was unrepentant.
"We need to fund (national) parks because of sanctions and sport hunting bans," he said. "We are between a rock and a hard place."
Colin Gilles, a long time elephant counter and executive in the Wildlife and Environment Society, said that the sale of the elephants was "the best of two evils".
"Exporting sub adult elephants is better then culling them, as long as they are looked after," he said.
"A number of baby elephants died in China the last time we exported there. I suppose export is the best of two evils.
"I don’t like it, but I know national parks desperately needs funds, and if these funds are received by parks, then we have to live with this."
The buyers of the elephants have not been disclosed. Zimbabwe exported elephants to United Arab Emirates last year, but it is thought the 50 elephants for export this year could go to China.
China and UAE have both denied their countries would buy elephants from Zimbabwe.
Mr Kasukawere said he was advised that "sub adult elephants," aged between five and seven years-old, should be tamed after capture so they suffer less stress during their journey.
"These exports are generally for elephants over five years old and are weaned from their mothers. And yes, they are tamed."
He said that Zimbabwe's elephants will sell for about £40,000 each, including delivery costs.
Zimbabwe has too many elephants in the north west, according to most elephant counters, and Zimbabwe’s national parks authority. They say relocation of animals to the north and east of Zimbabwe, where populations have been halved by poachers, was not necessary.
"Elephant populations here grow at about five per cent per annum. So relocation doesn’t make sense," said David Cummings, one of Zimbabwe's most experienced wildlife ecologists.
He said there will be a swift recovery of the elephant population in parts of Zimbabwe where numbers have dropped in recent years.
"There were about 4,000 elephants in Zimbabwe 100 years ago. Now we have about 100,000."
Trevor Lane, a long time elephant and wildlife expert in Victoria Falls, agreed.
"Relocation is not necessary. There has been a drought this year and so many will die which will bring the numbers down," he said. He added he hoped revenue from selling elephants would be used to fight poachers from Zambia.
There are unconfirmed reports that a dozen elephants were killed last weekend in the wildlife area, known as Matusadona, in northern Zimbabwe, near the Zambian border.
The Zimbabwe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has asked for permission from National Parks to observe the capture and export of elephants

Would the Chinese buy them and start farming them?

They have been to have bear & civet farms to extract the bile & civet scent on an industrial scale. But the animals used to be kept in terrible conditions.