Malawi: Ellies to be relocated


Johannesburg - Efforts are under way to end a deadly battle between farmers and elephants in a rural area of Malawi.

An international organisation says it is doing that by moving more than 60 elephants in the southern African country. They are being taken from Phirilongwe village, south of Lake Malawi, to the Majete Wildlife Reserve.

Jason Bell-Leask, a director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the evacuation began on Monday with nine elephants, including three young calves, that were tranquilised and lifted by a crane onto trucks for the six-hour journey to the reserve.

Local farmers sometimes use violence to protect their crops from raids by the elephants, and at least 10 people and a number of elephants have recently died in such confrontations.

The relocation of the dozens of elephants is expected to take about three weeks.

- SAPA

I just spent 6 months in Malawi, not much space for eles there!

Nat parks shot 2 eles near Mzuzu and in the process shot 2 village kids. Most parks guys carry M-16's!!!!..and I doubt they ever get to shoot them.

Well, I guess they were doing their bit for population control on both species.

Holy shit, spraying a herd of elephants with 5.56 bullets, sounds like a good way to get a whole village trampled to me. If they only killed two kids, I guess the village got off light.

There's a LOT of room in Niassa -- just put down a trail of maize "crumbs" and let them follow it to their new home.

Or, alternatively, you could try shooting them with .223's and get yourself squashed.

Here is a good website about Majete. I read every page, and it sounds like they are on the way to recovering and restocking the Park after some really hard times.

They make a good point about these Parks needing to generate tourism and jobs, or they just become places for the locals to loot for meat.

Majete Wildlife Reserve

I volunteer to help. I may need to invest in a cropping belt though.

Jeff