Zimbabwe and Namibia will kill scores
of elephants to feed people facing drought

Wow. Makes me glad we got Haitians instead of these guys.

Many of the world's zoos would love to have elephants. What a waste.

Most of those wild animals do Not taste good - at least I've heard. Chickens are easy enough to raise. You'd think they could raise enough to feed most everyone.

So much for environmentalism.

And then when the elephants are gone, what do you eat?

Before you get all sad, you need to know that elephants are over populated in many preserves and parks, where they cause huge damage while feeding. I have seen areas where elephants have grazed thru and they rip out ll the smaller trees to eat the preferred tender roots. Where they feed looks like a bulldozer ran amok. They destroy their own habitat,and the habitat for other animals. I saw this in person, talked with park rangers about it. Of course, the Animal Planet propagandists never show this aspect of habitat destruction. The 'save the animals' money collectors get rich on kind hearted but misinformed folks. When I was in Kruger Park, they had 8,000+ elephants and figured that the habitat would support 4,000. They couldn't get permission to cull due to pressure from foreign animal advocates, so the elephants were steadily destroying the park. Most of what is "known" about African wildlife from TV is not true, but designed to get money for the people running these organizations.

Not true #2, can't give them away. I asked when in South Africa. Need to get rid of 4,000 elephants......and most zoos have all they need, maybe 10 or 20 could find homes in zoos. What about the other 3,980?? Those who have never been to the place rarely understand the truth. No easy answers.

OH.. BOO HOO.. should we just send pallets of $$ over so they don't have to do it..

They should challenge animal NGOs to put their money where their Ads are, and ‘sponsor’ each elephant for $250k in shipped in food

I'd rather have the elephants migrating here than the idiots and criminals we got!

#6 is absolutely correct. Although the African elephant isn't common everywhere it used it be, in some places like Namibia and Zimbabwe, elephant populations are tens of thousands--maybe five times above what the local fauna will tolerate. They need culling before they leave nothing behind. If you think feral hogs are a problem here (and they are), imagine how bad hog damage would be if the hogs weighed over 10,000# apiece. Because it's the largest land animal, the elephant can be potentially the most dangerous of all. If a rogue elephant, as much as 13.8 feet high at the shoulder and 18,000#, with attitude, catches a person out in the open, it's all over quickly. The hippopotamus, capable of biting a human in half, kills several hundred people per year, more than the Nile crocodile, more than the black mamba, but the elephant with intent is hardest to stop. One elephant carcass can feed multiple villages. I've read that the muscle around the tusk is the tenderest meat of all. Hippo carcasses go a long way as well. One will feed many. Recently, I saw a video of an archer with a compound bow killing an adult cow elephant, quartering away, with one arrow. Cape buffalo and hippo have also been taken by archer. Pretty amazing what a bow and arrow will do. When culling trouble elephants by firearm, the least caliber allowed is .375 H&H, which is a fairly condiderable gun. .600 Nitro Express would probably be better. Hard cast bullets penetrate deeply into the brain. Don't miss or you're going to be flat, as in two dimensional

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiMiXq_jNGY (Point blank shot on a huge elephant, Botswana) In Kenyan national parks, where wildlife is protected, poachers are shot on sight. When riding across the fields of grass in our VW microbuses the front passenger seat was occupied by a park ranger with a scoped rifle. That rifle was intended not for our protection, but for the protection of commonly poached animals. The rifle was for certain types of people who fall under the rubric of poacher. We all approved. Africans should protect their rich natural heritage.

At one point, buffalo/bison in the U.S. had been hunted to near-extinction. Now they are being raised on private property by people who love the land and animals too. There are millions of them and we can buy the meat at grocery stores. If we could get the money-grubbing NGOs and their cry-baby supporters out of the process, we could have more, safer elephants. African tribesmen raising elephants for profit would absolutely guard their herds from poachers, fertile and young elephants would be safe and reproducing, elephants would be culled for meat and to keep the environment and other animals secure. Instead of being a totem for the virtue-signaling elites and "endangered" (and "endangering"), elephants would prosper. This-of course-will never happen as long as there is money to be made and cat-ladies to wring their hands and write checks.

And every time you see an animal documentary the elephants are down to their last herd and barely surviving. Now they are over populated. Same thing with Lions. Same people same lies.

Guess there are not enough crickets to go around.

Africans utilizing local resources-what's wrong with that? Youtube is full of vegan protestors here in the US trying to block access to farms /slaughterhouses here because they don't want the rest of us to enjoy meat because animals have feelings. Let's ship these pearl-clutching do-gooders to Zimbabwe and Namibia to protest-and watch what the locals will do & say to them.

Does population pressure reduce their fertility?

Elephants are not in an danger of going extinct. There is a huge elephant over population problem in most of Africa. Stop believing what the envirowackos and Hollywood tell you. Hunters and farmers are a better source of facts. And as for zoos wanting elephants, the US has so many unwanted elephants, we have an elephant sanctuary here in TN. Unwanted circus and zoo elephants come here to live out many times their rather long lives. And the sanctuary is just that, not a zoo. People can watch from webcams, that is all. Elephants are EXPENSIVE to keep as you can imagine, just like big cats. Hence why you can't give them away. There are just so few places for them to go. And as for raising chickens for meat, do you have ANY clue how much feed meat chickens require? The most feed efficient meat hybrids consume on average .6 to 1 lb feed (made up of most grain but also legume or fish meals, vitamins and minerals) per 1 lbs of dressed carcass weight. I know this because I raise chickens and ducks for meat and eggs. We produce ALL our on fowl meat and eggs and produce for others as well. Modern broilers are eating machines and live a short 8-10 weeks. Even more moderate growth chickens like Freedom Rangers or Sasso chickens which might make it to 14 weeks still consume a lot of grain to gain the muscle mass that becomes meat. True, your egg or dual purpose breed yard bird will forage a lot but don't plan on getting anything past a 2 lbs carcass on most of your roosters, and that will be tough as shoe leather by the time he is big enough to eat, hence Coq au vin. So if these nations are in a drought, where might they get the grain to feed the chickens or pigs or other omnivorous livestock? Importing is expensive. Better to eat your own over populated game animals. I bet one elephant will feed a lot of people.

Edit: "The most feed efficient meat hybrids consume on average .6 to 1 lb feed (made up of most grain but also legume or fish meals, vitamins and minerals) per 1 lbs of dressed carcass weight. " should be "The most feed efficient meat hybrids consume on average .6 to 1 lb feed per day (made up of most grain but also legume or fish meals, vitamins and minerals) per 1 lbs of final dressed carcass weight.

The area is under drought. Have to wonder how well these animals were faring in those conditions. Were they going to die anyway?

Pssst..."You wyte peebles need to mind your own biznuss, stop telling any African what to do with a frik'n elephant." Ya, know though...elephants once roamed american areas, maybeeeee...."Re-introducing them, like wolves. to American National Parks would be a gooood Idea?"-Kamala Harris(new campaign policy)

Cape Town to Cairo, Africa is a hot mess. How much of the starvation is a consequence of goobermint policies?

Simple people living in harmony with Nature.

Great. Feed people who can't feed themselves, so they have the energy to produce more people who can't feed themselves.

Blame a drought on the poor farming practices of black Zimbabwe "War Veterans' who destroyed the white owned and productive farms one the guidance of Mugabe. So kill the elephants because these ignorant Zimbabwe war veterans don't know anything about farming. BTW - DVC -what country have you not visited and therefore cannot opine on?

This region used to be the breadbasket for Africa, then the bad guys took over and chased out all the farmers who knew what they were doing.