|
 Members of the public "with the capacity to acquire and manage
wildlife" - and enough land to hold the animals - should get in
touch to register an interest, the state Parks and Wildlife
Management Authority said.
There were no details on the animals on offer or their cost, but the
southern African country's 10 national parks are famed for their
huge populations of elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards and buffalos.
A drought across the region has left more than 4 million Zimbabweans
needing aid and hit the crops they rely on for food and export
earnings, from maize to tobacco.
It has also exacerbated an economic crisis in the cash-strapped
country that has largely been deserted by foreign donors since 1999.
 Selling the animals would give some of them a new home and ease
financial pressure on the parks authority, which says it receives
little government funding and struggles to get by on what it earns
through hunting and tourism.
"In light of the drought ... Parks and Wildlife Management Authority
intends to destock its parks estates through selling some of the
wildlife," the authority said in a statement.
It asked interested Zimbabweans to get in touch and did not mention
foreign buyers. Parks authority spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo
would not say whether the animals could be exported or how many it
wanted to sell.
"We do not have a target. The number of animals depends on the bids
we receive," she said.
There was no immediate comment from the wildlife groups that
protested loudly last year when Zimbabwe exported 60 elephants, half
of them to China, where the animals are prized for their tusks.
[to top of second column] |
About 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, the agency says.
The drought is expected to worsen an already critical water shortage
in Hwange, which has no rivers and relies on donors to buy fuel to
pump out underground wells.
The privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported in
February that Bubye Conservancy, a private game park in southern
Zimbabwe, could be forced to kill 200 lions to reduce
over-population.
Many hunters have stayed away, the paper quoted Bubye general
manager Blondie Leathem as saying, since the furor over the killing
of Cecil, a rare black-maned lion, by a U.S. dentist last year.
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia and
Andrew Heavens)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
