Even robust species: climate change is killing hundreds of elephants

More than 45,000 elephants roam the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Time and again, lions attack the herds that stoically pass through this natural paradise. The legendary ‘Black Rhinos’, a special species of black rhino, also roam the reserve in southern Africa. But now dark clouds are gathering over this national park (also home to 100 other mammal species and 400 bird species). “But they do not bring the long-awaited rain, but rather a deadly danger against which even the gray giants are powerless,” says WWF species conservation expert Georg Scattolin, who reacts with dismay to the news from the animal disaster area that comes to the Netherlands. him almost every hour in Vienna.

Among the dead elephants there are mainly babies
In fact, the park rangers find new carcasses almost every day in the vastness of the savannah. Shockingly, these include babies who died in agony at dried up water sources. “Our very young and very old protégés, as well as those already weakened by illness, are being hit the hardest. Because they no longer have the strength to travel long distances to reach saving wetlands,” Tinashe Farawo of Zimbabwe Wildlife Management is sounding the alarm.

Already in 2019, the largest national park with 14,651 square kilometers – it is located in the west of the country in the foothills of the Kalahari on the border with Botswana – was hit by a tragedy of similar proportions. At that time, the park administration decided to install 100 solar-powered water pumps at strategic locations along the pachyderm migration routes. But even these are no longer able to transport a single drop from the parched earth to the surface. Zimbabwe should be in the midst of the massive rainy season, which for centuries began in October and once reliably brought life-giving, plentiful rainfall well into March.

Many animals also die in Kenya’s rich fauna
Reputable conservation organizations such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare see climate change as the main reason for the biblical-apocalyptic extinction that has also affected other species-rich states such as Kenya. This fuels the so-called El Niño effect, the occurrence of unusual, non-cyclical changes in ocean currents in the oceanographic-meteorological system.

In the special case of Africa, billions of droplets become just individual droplets – or remain desert-like dry for months, if not years. Scattolin’s fear: “We are only at the beginning of the mass extinction. The first effects are visible not only in South Africa, but also around the imposing Kilimanjaro in East Africa, where even the most robust species are dying of thirst.”