If climate change continues to worsen droughts are ravaging Africa, millions of people are facing famine. In the southeastern country of Namibia, almost half of the 2.5 million citizens struggling with food insecurity, with 84 percent of food reserves have been depleted.
Now the government pays hunters to slaughter hippos and elephants so they can be fed.
“The ministry will contribute 723 animals, including 30 hippos, 60 buffalos, 50 impalas, 100 blue wildebeest, 300 zebras, 83 elephants and 100 elands,” the Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism said in a statement. proposition. “The animals are sourced from national parks and communal areas with sustainable numbers of game.” The statement said that “with the severe drought situation in the country, conflicts are expected to increase if no interventions are made. To achieve this, 83 elephants from identified conflict areas will be culled, meat will be allocated to the drought relief programme under the Office of the Prime Minister.”
World weather attributiona group of scientists and researchers who analyze extreme weather events attributed the current drought to the recent El Niño phenomenon; it did not directly link the drought to climate change, but noted that Climate change worsens drought during El Niño due to increasing drought.
Although not much is known about the intelligence of hippos, Study 2022 in the journal Science found that hippos can recognize the voices of their friends and potential enemies. Elephants, meanwhile, are also smart enough to form sentences with their rumblings — and are also uniquely vulnerable to climate change. Conservationists are determined to protect both groups of animals from poaching, even though each has a history of disruptive interactions with local people.
