More than 200 elephants are being moved across Africa to a better home.
The African elephants were over populating a South African reserve—now, a conservation group and the The Moving Giants initiative is moving them to a new home in Mozambique.
“Most of the wildlife areas in southern Africa are fenced, so the animals can’t migrate by themselves,” Conservation Solutions’ Kester Vickery explained. “They can’t go from an area where there is no food to an area where there’s lots of food, so fences stop their migration.”
In 1930, up to 10 million African elephants roamed the wild—today just 415,000 remain, as a result of poaching, conflict, and habitat loss. But Vickery and others are working to move a group of them so that they can repopulate areas where they’re on the decline.
The African elephant is the largest animal walking the Earth and moving 200 of them 1,000 miles is no small task. Using helicopters, precise positioning and dart guns, they help transport the elephants to their new home.
100 elephants have successfully been moved as of August 2019 after surviving the 1,000-mile journey across Africa—and they hope to successfully move more.
“The Moving Giants initiative is a win-win scenario for both habitats, and the elephants,” World Elephant Day’s Patricia Sims told NowThis. “The fact that these 101 elephants have been successfully translocated 1,700 kilometers, is absolutely remarkable.”
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