Ongoing undercover investigations revealed the scale and horror of the capture, transportation and export of live elephants from Zimbabwe. China became a dominant buyer of African elephants in 2012 at the time when there was a spike for the demand for elephants due to the massive proliferation in the construction of zoos and ‘safari’ parks across the country. Until 2020, when results of these investigations banned any further exports of live elephants. Zimbabwe has since been sanctioned by the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the organisation that regulates international trade in wildlife, to sell live wild-caught elephants abroad.

Investigations conclusion: Since 2012, the pattern for the capture and exports of African elephants has always been the same – juvenile elephants ranging in age from a few months to seven years old, were all captured from wild herds within Zimbabwe’s largest national park, Hwange. They are caught using helicopters from where shooters dart the young elephants. The helicopter is deployed to drive away the rest of the herd as a ground crew rushes in to winch the sedated elephants onto trailers before the herd returns. The elephants are then loaded onto awaiting crates and trucked to pens at a holding facility and quarantined for a few months before being flown on a cargo plane to China. Here, after another few months in quarantine, they are separated and sent to a variety of zoos, animal parks and circuses across the country. During the transport, quarantine and capture processes, many young elephants were injured, or became ill. At least twenty elephants have known to have died during the period of exports. Individual elephants were purchased from between US$ 30,000 to US$ 40,000. It is reported that most of the proceeds (approximately US$ five million) have either been used to pay government debts and/or have gone into the private coffers of Zimbabwe’s ministers and the even presidency itself. Video and photographic footage and documents were gathered for a protracted media exposé of these exports. These all culminated in the activity being banned by the beginning of 2020.

PUBLISHED DOCUMENT:
https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/31/Docs/E-AC31-18-02.pdf

PUBLISHED ARTICLES:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/150925-elephants-china-zimbabwe-cites-joyce-poole-zoos-wildlife-trade

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/23/zimbabwe-ships-live-elephants-to-wildlife-parks-in-china

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/03/exclusive-footage-shows-young-elephants-being-captured-in-zimbabwe-for-chinese-zoos