5000 families flee hungry rampaging elephants in Mozambique
Pastor Dale Morgan
5000 families flee hungry rampaging elephants in Mozambique
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Agence France-Presse
June 05, 2009 09:07pm
A HERD of hungry elephants has forced all 5000 families in a northern
Mozambican village to abandon their homes.
The constant incursion of elephants from Quirimbas National Park seeking
food in the fields around the village of Nraha forced the families to
relocate to an area with fewer elephants, Noticias newspaper said.
The animals also threatened agricultural production in the village and
forced children to abandon their studies to chase elephants out of the
fields, the paper said.
Conflicts between people and animals are increasingly common in
Mozambique, which has seen a resurgence of wildlife since the end of the
country's civil war in 1992.
Elephants, lions, hippos and other wild animals pose a frequent threat
to the lives and livelihoods of people who live in and around
Mozambique's national parks.
In 2007, wild animals killed 133 people and injured 51 others.
Human-animal conflict presents a tricky problem for Mozambican
officials, who have sought to maximise the tourism potential of the
country's wildlife while minimising the destruction the animals can cause.
Quirimbas National Park stretches along the northeast coast of
Mozambique. Established in 2002, it protects more than 750,000ha of
coastal forest and mangroves, coral reefs and animal life.