ENVIRONMENT: Time Running Out for Swaziland to Sell Elephants to U.S. Zoos

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Feb 21 2003 (IPS) - Time is running out for Swaziland to sell eleven ”orphaned” elephants to zoos in the United States, even if the sale means incurring the wrath of powerful animal rights organisations.

”Elephants are big, beautiful animals, but they can be destructive to eco-systems,” Kenneth Dube, a game ranger at Hlane Royal Game Reserve, told IPS.

The position of the Big Game Parks of Swaziland, a private collection of three animal reserves whose unofficial but powerful patron is King Mswati III, is that too many elephants are ruining the habitats of other wildlife, including some endangered species.

After word leaked that two U.S. zoos wished to purchase eleven surplus elephants from Swaziland, the powerful American animal welfare group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) expressed its opposition in letters to King Mswati and Tourism Minister Stella Lukele.

Jane Garrison, an elephant specialist with PETA, told IPS, ”PETA is adamant against stealing animals from their natural homes and cramming them in zoo cages, but especially when it comes to the San Diego Zoo and the Lowry Park Zoo, which are the zoos that want to cage Swaziland’s young elephants”.

Ted Reilly, the founder of Big Game Parks of Swaziland, sent his son Mickey Reilly to the United States to investigate the American zoos. That was six months ago, and the trip’s outcome is unknown.

”We have to report our findings to His Majesty (Mswati) before a public announcement,” Mickey Reilly told IPS.

Meanwhile, the sale is on hold, which pleases the tourism ministry. If the elephant sale goes forward, PETA has promised to mount a tourism boycott against the tiny Southern African kingdom, whose population is only slightly larger than PETA’s international membership. Government is hoping to increase tourism in the kingdom, to bring in much needed foreign currency. Tourism authorities fret that the elephant sale is not worth upsetting those plans.

At Hlane Royal Game Park, however, the matter seems more urgent.

”The elephants are making life difficult for breeding raptors (like hawks and vultures) and other species whose habitats are disturbed by the overpopulation of pachyderms,” game ranger Dube said.

The problem is the elephants are ”orphans”, unattached to a family. Elephants lie in a hierarchy of family-like colonies. When a ”father” elephant is missing, the rouge youngsters tend to go wild without an elder to enforce discipline. In the case of Hlane’s elephants, they refuse to respect park boundaries, and roam the countryside, destroying crops at a time when the country is suffering a critical food shortage.

Hlane repopulated Swaziland with elephants relatively recently, in 1985, 40 years after elephants were hunted to extinction in the country. The animals came from South Africa, and many were orphans.

PETA offered an alternative to the sale to U.S. zoos when the group proposed that the elephants be sent to an animal preserve in South Africa. However, South Africa has had bad experiences with orphaned elephants, and forbids their importation.

”South Africa exported a problem when they gave Swaziland so many elephant orphans,” said Dube.

Hlane Park requires 300,000 U.S. dollars to extend electrical fencing to permit the elephant population to roam more extensively. Park conservationists feel that until the fence is erected, culling of the elephant herd is the hope for the survival of other species. A sale to an appropriate animal facility would allow the elephants to live, and bring in needed revenue to ensure future culling might be unnecessary.

PETA insists the U.S. zoos are not appropriate facilities, based on research the group has conducted that documented incidents of abuse against elephants.

A source in the Swaziland animal conservation movement told IPS that PETA’s input is welcomed, because all parties are ultimately concerned with the elephants’ welfare. However, Swazis fear that PETA’s help comes with strings attached.

”PETA assisted South African parks financially, but on condition that animal herds not be culled. This has led to a crisis in overpopulation, and animals are dying of disease and starvation,” the conservationist said.

Swazi conservationists have come to realise that PETA has enemies in the United States. Groups opposed to the animal welfare agenda have been e-mailing Big Game Parks of Swaziland and the local media spurious ”reports” that PETA is engaged in illegal activities, and puts the welfare of animals above human beings.

PETA’s Garrision said such tactics are as familiar as they are unfounded, and they show how lobbying groups in support of animal hunting and the leather and fur industries are threatened by animal conservation.

Swaziland is geographically distant from such Developed World concerns, but is the centre of a battle pitting elephants against poor peasant farmers desperate to protect their crops.

”It is a very bad thing when animals destroy crops, and you can understand why a farmer would be devastated,” Ted Reilly said. ”Our interest as a game reserve is to protect animals. Elephants’ welfare is key. That is why we seek compromise, and we are looking for alternative ways forward.”

Palace sources say King Mswati has received the game parks’ report on the possible elephant sale to the United States and is close to reaching a decision. By custom and law, all animals in Swaziland are the ”property” of the king, who holds them in trust for the Swazi people. Mswati must therefore approve of the sale of every game animal.

His decision will weigh the threat of a tourism boycott against the welfare of peasant farmers during a food crisis, and eleven elephants who face death via culling or life in U.S. zoos.