Paul Nyathi

Zimbabwe sold 32 baby elephants to China in October 2019, after tearing them away from their wild families in 2018, for the latter country’s use in zoos.

The transaction was very controversial and criticised by many, including fellow African countries.

The elephants, estimated to have been 2 to 6 years old, were separated from maternal herds and held at Hwange National Park for nearly a year before being flown out to China.

The Humane Society released a video and photos which it said shows the small elephants being held in a fenced in area at Hwange National Park.

Zimbabwean wildlife authorities did not comment on the statement.

Ivonne Higuero, secretary-general of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates such trade addressed the situation. In a press conference ahead of the export, she characterised the likely Chinese destinations for the elephants as “perfect” and “good”. Her description was based on what she’d heard from Zimbabwean authorities and the watchdog’s previous leadership.

Now, filmmaker and author Karl Ammann has secured footage of the young elephants in a zoo facility in China. The Canary has sought an assessment of the footage from a number of wildlife experts, including an elephant specialist with 37 years of experience. None of them consider the elephants’ current predicament ‘perfect’ or ‘good’. In fact, they argued that the situation these “sentient, intelligent, cognitive” beings are currently forced to endure is a “dramatic negative change in their welfare” – evident in the heartbreaking signs of stress they’re exhibiting that will cause them to suffer “throughout their most likely significantly shortened lives”.

In short, the overwhelming reaction to the footage was that this isn’t an ‘appropriate or acceptable’ destination for the elephants at all – which is the very standard that the watchdog is meant to uphold.

As previously reported, Zimbabwe exported the elephants to China just before the watchdog implemented a landmark rule change that would have made the sale near impossible.

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