The mass slaughtering of 200 elephants has been authorised in Zimbabwe.
This comes as nearly half of the country’s population is facing the risk of acute hunger due to one of the worst droughts experienced in decades.
Zimbabwe’s announcement follows a similar move made by Namibia to cull elephants and other wild animals to relive hunger in their countries.
However, the culling in both instances has drawn criticism from animal rights activists and conservationist.
Zimbabwe’s elephant population is the second largest in the world being home to more than 84 000 elephants.
According to Zimbabwe’s Environment minister, the country has more elephants than their forests can accommodate, adding that the over population by the elephants causes a lack of resources leading to human/wildlife conflict in the country.
