WORLD

If you’re in the market for purchasing wildlife, you could get a good deal in Zimbabwe. The drought-racked country has put its wild animals up for sale in a bid to ease financial pressure on its national parks. (International Business Times)

Learn a little about droughts with our “Droughts 101” video.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit, including today’s quick-and-easy MapMaker Interactive map of Zimbabwe’s national parks.

Cecil the lion, killed by an American hunter last year, was probably Zimbabwe’s most famous feline. If the drought continues, Zimbabwe’s national parks may be forced to cull 200 lions.
Photograph by Daughter#3, courtesy Wikimedia. CC-BY-SA-2.0

Another big cat threatened by Zimbabwe’s drought is the cheetah.
Photograph by Volkmar K. Wentzel, National Geographic

The caracal is a medium-size cat found throughout Zimbabwe and the rest of southern Africa.
Photograph by Volkmar K. Wentzel, National Geographic

Elephants put the charismatic in charismatic megafauna.
Photograph by Kevin Walsh, courtesy Flickr. CC-BY-2.0

Discussion Ideas

• A devastating drought is forcing Zimbabwe’s national parks to sell their priceless, emblematic wildlife, including buffalo, elephants, leopards, lions and rhinos. What weather phenomenon has contributed to southern Africa’s drought?
  • El Niño, a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, has also contributed to reduced rainfall across southern Africa.

• Why are national parks being particularly hard-hit by the drought?
  • Some national parks, including the enormous Hwange National Park, have no sources of freshwater outside precipitation—no lakes, no rivers.
  • Zimbabwe’s troubled government allots little funding to national parks. In addition, as the drought continues to plague the region, the government is prioritizing funding food security for its human population.
  • Zimbabwe’s largest trading partners, South Africa and China, are experiencing economic downturns of their own and cannot be relied upon to support Zimbabwe’s national parks.
  • Zimbabwe’s national parks actually have an overabundance of wildlife. For instance, according to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, “[a]bout 54,000 of Zimbabwe’s 80,000 elephants live in the western Hwange National Park, more than four times the number it is supposed to hold.”

• What will happen to the animals in Zimbabwe’s national parks if buyers are not found?
  • “Destocking” the parks may include culling the game as well as selling it.
    • For instance, “the Bubye Conservancy could be forced to cull, or selectively kill, 200 lions due to overpopulation.” Lion populations in Bubye have grown as hunters have stayed away following the international furor over the killing of Cecil the Lion last year.

• Why are some wildlife conservationists critical of Zimbabwe’s plan to sell animals?
  • Last year, under similar economic pressure, Zimbabwe sold 60 elephants to China for between $40,000 and $60,000 each. China is the leading market for elephant ivory, and conservationists were concerned the animals would be slaughtered.
    • FYI: Zimbabwe has not approached foreign governments to buy its animals. The current appeal is directed at interested members of the public “‘with the capacity to acquire and manage wildlife’ and enough land to contain the animals.”

TEACHERS’ TOOLKIT

International Business Times: Zimbabwe’s Wild Animals For Sale: National Parks Forced To Sell Wildlife Amid Drought

Nat Geo: Zimbabwe’s National Parks map

Nat Geo: Droughts 101

Nat Geo: What is a drought?